Town of Rochester Town Board held the Public Hearing on the 2022 Proposed Budget on November 4, 2021 at 6:30pm at the Harold Lipton Community Center, 15 Tobacco Road Accord, New York 12404
Livestream Broadcast on YouTube https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCg7ykop50cWmqPFUpgDjRSQ

Supervisor Baden called the public hearing to order and led in the Pledge of Allegiance to the Flag.

PRESENT:

Councilwoman Erin Enouen Councilwoman Haugen-Depuy
Councilman Chris Hewitt Councilman Adam Paddock
Supervisor Michael Baden Town Clerk Kathleen Gundberg
Town Attorney Marylou Christiana Highway Superintendent Jeff Frey

Public Hearing – 2022 Preliminary Budget
The Town of Rochester Town Board presents to the Town Clerk the 2022 Preliminary Budget in the amount of

Fund Operating Costs Tax Levy % Change in Tax Levy
General Fund $2,469,602 $536,938 -15.43%
Highway Fund $1,989,927 $1,400,427 +3.21%
Total $4,459,529 $1,937,365 -2.74%
Special Districts
Accord Lighting $2,520 $1,465 -41.09%
Kerhonkson Lighting $1,620 $ 940 -42.40%
Berme Lighting $ 630 $ 365 -42.41%

PUBLIC COMMENT:

Carol Fischer: In regards to the Supervisor’s 23 % raise, people are having a hard time making a living, seniors are coming out of retirement and going back to work because it’s hard. I work part time but almost 40 hours a week and I never had a raise.

Charles Fischer: I don’t think any elected officials should get a raise. My fuel was half my social security check this month.

Judy Hasbrouck: 23 % raise is steep during these economic times. I understand a 2-3 %. Why such an increase? What warranted it?

Ruth Bendelius: 22-23 % raise is unhealthy and should be looked into more.

Zorian Pinksy: I believe $ 39,000 for a full time job isn’t enough especially for the Supervisor who is the administrator and fiscal officer.
I am speaking as an Auxiliary member of KAFAS, Kerhonkson-Accord First Aid Squad. And it is an alarm call for the board and the community.
Very few in the community are aware about the dire circumstances it might face with availability of the First Aid Service in the nearest future. The KAFAS can’t longer exist by just using volunteers. They are simply not available. The organization is responding to about 900 calls per year, including partially for the Town of Wawarsing. And it can’t keep up with the demand.
As a result, they are about to hire professionals to fill the gaps. For start, they will bring in 2 EMT’s, for 3 days/week, 12-hour shifts. Going forward they would need those technicians to work twice as many days per week. Then, the service would be provided 70% of the time by the professionals. All that would require financial contributions from the town. The estimate is that for 2022 KAFAS will need about $145,000 from the town to sustain its service. In the following years that amount will increase by 6-10% per year. If that amount isn’t provided by the town, the organization would become insolvent in about a year.
The ideal solution for the situation is creating an Ambulance District like the Fire District. Yes, some hurdles exist for creation of the district, but with persistence and creativity the task should be solved. After all, the residents will, in 2022, contribute by paying total $780K in taxes toward the Fire District. The timely first aid service isn’t less important than a fire emergency service. They both go together. So, the residents should weigh Yes vs. No to the additional taxation.

Remember that the community is counting on the first aid service as well as many businesses in town, especially the short-term accommodations, new businesses like Westwind, Arrowood and Innes, others new establishments providing food services. Absence of the first aid service could be critical and in some unfortunate circumstances life threatening.

Nature: 29 YOM ABDOMINAL PAINS, Nature: 74 YOF LEG INJURY
Nature: a/m injuries from assault, Nature: 61 YOM fallen, back injury
Nature: 29 YOM semi-conscious Nature: 22 YOF difficulties breathing
Nature: 70 YOM ABDOMINAL PAIN Nature: 85 YOM UNCONSIOUS/UNRESPONSIVE- NOT BREATHING
A call from motel, Nature: MALE UNRESPONSIVE
So, as you can see the residents and the guests are all dependent on the Kerhonkson-Accord First Aid Squad. Your attention to their critical needs is required.

Stephen Roberts: Our Town Supervisor has 3 different titles; chairman of the town, non-executive and fiscal officer. Those are three very different specific positions it is my understanding that the job increase of the salary is because the position has gone to full-time if that is the case for the change I’d like the Board to rewrite the job description to indicate that it is now a full-time job and really clearly define each of these three parts of the Town Supervisor and what the position is expected to do.

Sherry Ellsworth: I work for the State, 16 years full time keeping inmates in jail and I don’t make $ 49,000.00, I’ve never gotten more than a 2% raise, I have never seen a 23% increase for anybody, it’s outrageous with the cost of living these days for people to survive. It’s totally unfair that you ask taxpayers to give you that kind of raise.

Clay Haugen: I just recently retired after 26 ½ years from Department of Corrections. So far we’ve been in negotiation without a contract for 7 years and we still don’t know what we will receive but I’ll guarantee one thing it’s not going to be 23 % . You guys have the cart in front of the horse you’ve got a job description that reads part-time yet you’re approving a raise for a full-time position. It’s unacceptable get your ducks in a row before you approve something like this nobody would begrudge you a decent raise something along 7% might be acceptable provided you can prove to the public that it’s a full-time job. Every predecessor prior to this Supervisor has been able to accomplish these tasks at the same part-time hours. Now it becomes imperative to give a 23% in a one-time shot? Give that money to Mr. Frey to fix the roads around here or maybe more trading would be in order for the Supervisor to be able to better manage his time that’s an option. I rather see that money help the Town rather than helping one person.

Charles Nerkos: suppose you call 911 because you or a family member is in need of life-saving medical treatment and there’s a one in ten chance that the rescue squad will not show up. That is not the plot to a horror movie that is the state of EMS in the Town of Rochester today. I moved to this beautiful town earlier this year for the past twenty years I have been involved with EMS and in the last decade I’ve been involved in EMS administration. We have a terrific First Aid Squad that since its funding in 1965 has provided millions of dollars of free prompt emergency medical care to our Town. This is a nationwide issue not a squad issue nor a local issue or a Ulster County issue it’s effecting rural volunteer ambulance services throughout the nation the main problem is that volunteers have work during the day to provide for their families and it’s tough to attract volunteers when we are in the middle of a pandemic and asking them to take on professional level life-saving work in addition to maintaining their full-time jobs. In addition two of our top EMT’s are now on medical leave at the squad. The squad is proposing a hybrid staffing approach to hire EMS professionals on a part-time basis to augment the work of our dedicated volunteers as an emergency stop gap the squad has made this investment on its own for this year but the squad will go insolvent and close it’s doors unless the Town could provide funding. The nature of rural EMS it is not sustainable to have 24/7 365 service relying only on insurance reimbursements in a rural area such as ours. We would like to thank the Town Board for considering our budget request we need the help, we prioritize patient care and look to the Town Board for leadership on the political issue. I saw that Marbletown is on the agenda and I know that they presented a funding request to the Town Board . Marbletown covers 100 parcels in the Town of Rochester and has paid hybrid staff and are threatening to cut off Town of Rochester residents because the Town of Rochester doesn’t fund their squad and marbletown tax dollars are funding Marbletown squad so they don’t want to respond to Rochester. KAFAS voted unanimously at our last meeting to absorb and enlarge our service area so we can continue to service all Town of Rochester residents so they don’t have to be threatened by getting cut off from Marbletown. We’re willing to do whatever the Board wants in terms of expanding the service area to find solution to this. If a ambulance district is the answer the squad looks to the politicians for the political aspects of the town boundary and other complicated issue. The squad is willing to do what it takes to make it successful and ensures that everytime someone calls 911 a local community ambulance responder it there for that critical call. I would like to thank the Town Board for their consideration to these very serious issues.

Tim Bunch: I have a degree in accounting and this budget is ridiculous no longer do we have the simplification of an 8 page we have a 47 page budget . We have an outstanding amount of debt so reducing the budget doesn’t compute. It is very misleading. I believe the 23 % raise was well covered. Why such a huge pay increase for the Town Attorney? Why are we paying to have legal council at every meeting? We would save taxpayers money if when a law question arises, you can table the discussion pending Attorney review. That budget line alone increased 48 %. The Nut tree park and the greenway path are a waste of money. We have rail trails, I like rail trails and I use them often, Maybe the town can sell a patch or badge showing support of the trails and it will bring in money for the trail. The public deserves EMS coverage. Maybe our volunteer fireman can join services which will have more volunteers. I am not against paying EMS for those off hours, we have a lot of young people in our town that are smart they could learn how to stabilize someone to get that person to the hospital as quickly as possible. We have enough money in the budget to increase lawyer fees $40,000, $ 10,000 the 23 % raise your asking for, everybody is talking about rail trail expansion for the green deal what is that $ 50 -100,000? I don’t even know its really difficult to figure out. $ 5,000 for nut trees, that’s approximately
$150,000 that can go to EMS without raising the budget. I’d much rather if I’m on the floor clinching my chest know that I hear sirens coming than think about looking up at those lovely nut trees. The Town website is also difficult to navigate.

Rick Jones: I’m not here to talk about the Supervisor’s salary increase except to say that I assume that the board has looked at the amount of work the Supervisor is currently doing versus past Supervisor’s.What I am really here to talk about is the planning board and just to petition the board to sustain the amount of money that I asked for. I am the new planning board chair and we asked for $ 5,000.00. In addition to that we’ll be coming to you institute some escrow account.To give a little bit background on how we manage the money; application fees have increased over a couple of years that require more work that’s done by the building department and planning board. These would be monies to pay professionals whether it be the attorney, a planner or engineer to evaluate the projects that come before us. The number of applications has increase the complexity of work some people in the community believe that they should be able to do whatever they want without respect to our environmental concerns restrictions. The board is being far more careful about how we handle these applicants and what we ask them to do to satisfy the subdivision codes, applying the planning process as well as the town code. The planning process calls for more expertise than I have or anybody else on the board but again those fees are going to be paid for by the escrow monies which we are allowed to charge. So my petition to you is to take a look at the money we ask for it’s simply to cover the cost of training, the cost of the salary of $ 25-30 dollars maybe.

Larry Dewitt: I began talking to Carl Chipman around 8 years ago regarding the need to increase the salary of the Supervisor and in my discussions with him I thought it was clear that he was working 50 – 60 hours a week and a salary equivalent to the Town Clerk would be very reasonable and one could have been perhaps making a rationale for making it larger than that . Sometimes I’ve seen where the Supervisor has worked 70 hours a week. I’m very much in favor of the salary increase. It’s a hell of a lot on a percentage basis but had the salary been at the right level from my perspective it wouldn’t be really catching up its not an annual salary increase it’s catching up from my perspective.

Kaustubh Wahal : To me it doesn’t matter exactly who the individual is it’s really about the position and having talked to a few people and as the gentleman prior said with the amount of work that goes into it and also looking at how much it has been increased in the past few years and how it compares to others potentially, I think we should consider not looking at a percentage rates but look at it as what a person needs to live essentially and I would focus on that rather than a percentage basis. I understand that there are certain constraints we should be looking at it from a financial stand point where those numbers can be taken down as gentleman said. Second point is I do feel that an increase in EMS service would help the town in a large range. I think we need to come up with some creative solutions and one that was mentioned earlier about partnering with perhaps the fire department and looking at funding. I don’t know the laws of the dynamics behind it but looking at it creatively.

Phil Beal: I would like to thank everyone that has worked in the prison system, the rescue squad and fire department, you have provided a great service. It’s quite exorbitant for 23 % raise, I think 2-3 % is more in line instead. It’s just my own opinion I was a fireman in the city for a number of years in the 80-90’s and at one point we were in a two-year contract basis this was for a job that we were putting our life on the line every day day in and day out but that’s what I signed up for you go to work not knowing if you’re going home. They offered us zero. I’m going to skip around and borrow an idea from my good friend, politicians should earn a salary of less than what a new army, navy or airforce recruit makes. I believe we should increase the EMS service line, maybe you can work on funding combining the Fire Company with the EMS squad. We should be so thankful for both the Fire company and Rescue squad. They are putting their life on the line and no politician should be making more than Military. Regarding skate time there seems to be no transparency and no accountability in my opinion as a tax payer a lot of us are on a fixed income and a 23% raise in one year is out of line.

Troy Dunn: Possibly I can shed some historical light on things , what I witnessed growing up my father was the Town Supervisor and ran his own business and I’m sure your going to tell me that’s dated, yes I will agree with you it’s dated information but perhaps if the Supervisor’s position has become fulltime maybe our government is getting too large in our little Town of Rochester. It was a part time position and in my opinion it should stay part-time. Maybe those old world war II codgers were so tough and efficient that they could run a full time business and be a Supervisor maybe the people today can’t do that I’m not going to judge them for that at all but I can say is that its traditionally a part-time position and you can’t tell me that there’s absolutely that much more work to substantiate to be a full-time position today. To the Board just to reiterate what the gentleman here said, It’s tough to compare the proverbial apples and oranges of what members of our armed forces obviously, I’ll leave you with if it doesn’t get your goat that somebody can make millions of dollars to carry a ball or put it through a hoop yet a navy seal who can pick off a terrorist from a thousand meters make 50 grand a year ? It doesn’t justify anything but it supports that it’s not always fair but let’s just look at the facts here what the job really entails.

Shirley Avery: My heart felt thoughts go out to Tammy Avery the Captain of the rescue squad as she is recovering. I remember hearing years ago how the squad needed help. They do have many CD’s in the bank. 6 or 7 years ago they talked of becoming board authorized sort of like the fire department. They did hire professionals back then but they couldn’t afford to keep going. They do bill your insurance when you go in the ambulance and that is what was keeping them going to pay those guys. The problem is Mom and Dad are working a job and many have two jobs and they don’t have the time to donate and get the training. I offered to help but it got too clicky, too many friends they hang out and when the call goes off some go and the rest of the crowd hangs out at the squad. They do need help and they do need the money but they need better organizational skills. That’s how I feel and I was voted out for feeling that way. On another note this 23 % raise I live on a fixed income my husband is disabled, I’m disabled there is no way that we can afford this increase in taxes and the County taxes are going up a certain percent and there is no way that we’re going to get our rebates from the county that we’re expecting because taxes are going up, our taxes have to reflect that part too.

Tom Geelan: I have an idea being 23 % in one year is like phenomenal, I’m retired from the state and I remember getting 2-3 % and our government gave us a great one year we received 4 zeros in a row. Instead of taking it all in one shot why don’t you try to spread it over a couple years, you just got re elected maybe you can divide it over the next 2 years. Maybe if it was 9-10 % then we work into it .

Roxanne: Is I possible to get a job description of all the things that you think are now or will be adding to your position if this infact is full-time and possible to codify the job description? My second question is if the Supervisor has another full-time job how will you juggle the two full-time jobs?

Sherry Ellsworth: Is the skate time purchase in the budget? Or is that going to go up and raise our taxes even more next year? Is there are reason why we are not utilizing the grant the Town was approved for to build a Town Hall it was a 49 %-51% match? It wouldn’t be an expense like the 18 million dollar over 30 years expense Skatetime would cost and allow the people that we’re buying it from who you already signed the contract for and only way to avoid that contract is a vote of no. I want clarification to ask you how you can sign a contract for a building that we haven’t even voted on and make these decisions for our Town as the Supervisor without speaking to the members of the town to see what our wants were.

Tim Bunch: I’m hoping that when you do the job description and have that I would like to look at the side byside differences.

Angela Lira: I have a question about skatetime, we went to the meeting there in October we were supposed to get a comparison on which one with the existing buildings that we are in compared to the skate time budget. I’m just wondering if that ever went through because we were told two weeks Adam. And I don’t believe in the
23 % raise either.

Councilman Paddock: we are working on that, it is part of our discussion topics tonight.

John Martin: I’m not knowledgeable enough to know whether the raise is warranted or not but if indeed it is I think it should be more in line with the cost of living. I was an educator for 36 years and I recently just got a raise that amounted to $ 15 a month. Again I am not going to judge whether a raise is needed but it should be in line with cost of living rather than a multiplier of it.

Ruth Bendelius: Vinny Dunn had more work to do getting information and what not running around as Supervisor compared to today. You have a computer with instant action to information needed. So I don’t think you can really compare some of these jobs.

Mike Coleman: I am sympathetic to everyone who doesn’t feel like they’re getting paid enough, I think correction officers and bus drivers pretty much everyone should be getting paid more than they are because we all work hard and people work hard, we focus on cnn and fox news and playing basketball and football don’t work as hard as a lot of people in the room. It’s also important that this is not a merit increase. This is not Mike’s getting a salary bump because he did such a great job as Supervisor, this is kind of looking at the long term plans for the Town and I agree we need to define what the role and the scope of the Supervisor is, and that should be clear because Mike’s not always going to be in that seat and we need to know what our expectations are we need to tell them what we expect of them. We can look at percentages all we want but we really need to think about who is going to be sitting in that seat 2-4 years from now because they’re the ones that are going to help us run this Town they’re going to be the one we speak to and tell them what our issues are. I think the Town Clerk does phenomenal job earns every penny that she gets, the Highway Superintendent does a phenomenal job earns every penny. I think we really need to look at this in terms of what do we want, who do we value in this Town, how do we show our value towards our employees and how do we ensure that we get the best people in that job. It is all well and good to say you want to get people at the lowest cost for taxpayers I agree with all that , I pay taxes too but at the same time there comes a point at which you know you’re paying somebody so low that you don’t want to get the person that going to do the cheapest job necessarily. You don’t take your car to the mechanic that’s the cheapest but has no experience fixing your car, you don’t hire a babysitter that’s the lowest on the price scale to take care of your kids if they’ve never taken care of kids before. We want to make sure the salary is going to encourage people who want to do the job, who are going to work hard and I think we do need to define what our expectations are.

Phil Beal: We live in extradinary times, and the Supervisor was re elected why run when you know what the salary was?

Shirley Avery: the cost of living increase 5.9% on social security maybe consider that amount when putting in the increase.

Tim Bunch: Thank you all for your service. It takes a lot to sit there. A raise in salary may draw more of a crowd of eligible candidates.

Charles Nerkos: Thank you all for the comments of KAFAS. I love the idea of partnering with the fire company and anyone interested in volunteering please consider. If anyone has further ideas I am here to listen.

John Martin: I don’t know if the elected salary should be a magnat attracting people for the position.

CLOSURE OF PUBLIC HEARING ON PROPOSED 2022 BUDGET:
Resolution # -2021:

A Motion was made by Councilman Paddock to close the public hearing at 7:33pm on the 2022 proposed budget.
Second: Councilman Hewitt
Aye: 5 nay: 0 abstain: 0 motion carried

RESPECTFULLY SUBMITTED,

KATHLEEN A. GUNDBERG
TOWN CLERK