By Dave Canfield
The Record
NORTH GREENBUSH — The town debated a handful of cost-cutting measures Thursday to address a looming year-end deficit, approving some but taking no action on the most contentious.
While it remains uncertain whether the town will return any or all of the four new copy machines it recently leased, actions were taken to reduce the number of employees granted cell phones and to enforce a union contract provision that might have harmed the town financially.
“We are right now desperately seeking ways to save money,” said Councilman Alan Michaels. “We are six months into the year, and we basically need to find six figures of money.”
The town’s projected year-end general fund deficit now looks to be $119,000, said Comptroller Michael Strenka. Due to economy-driven, lower-than-budgeted revenue from building permits and sales and mortgage taxes, the general fund’s total revenue is set to be $222,000 in the red, improved by about $100,000 in anticipated underspending.
Those figures do not take into account the negative $85,000 the fund began the year with.
“We’re going to try to close that gap,” Strenka told the Town Board.
In an effort to do that, only four town employees — not counting emergency services — will now have cell phones, down from a previous 12. Retaining phones will be Supervisor Mark Evers as well as the heads of the building, highway and utilities departments.
Councilman Ernest Kern was the lone vote against the measure, expected to save $2,500 for the remainder of the year, expressing his worries about a lack of communication in an emergency.
“This is not a huge savings, but it does set a tone,” said Councilman Al Spain.
The board also moved to enforce an existing provision in the town’s contract with the United Public Service Employees Union to restrict the carryover of vacation time into a new year. Nine employees — about half of those in the bargaining unit — will have their accrued vacation hours reduced to 40.
But the night’s most heated discussion concerned four copy machines that the town recently leased, which were intended to replace some older ones that the town already pays numerous venders to maintain. Evers said the contract signed with Ikon, which will feature a monthly payment of about $75 more per month and include maintenance for all copiers new and old, is ultimately a savings and a convenience.
“This is something I’ve been looking at since I first got in office,” Evers said, noting a cheaper cost-per-copy with the new machines. “In the long run, we thought this would save the town money.”
But board members were angered at Evers signing a contract without their approval, or without informing them at all during the months-long process of negotiating with Ikon.
“Had the board been aware of a contract ahead of time, we might all be in agreement on this,” said Michaels.
Desso said he only heard about the copiers when a town employee called him the day they arrived. He said some department heads weren’t aware they were coming, either.
“We cannot do business this way,” he said, referring to both spending and communication.
Meanwhile, Spain called a ratio of three employees per copier “outrageous in any setting.”
Kern, however, held up a stack of stapled pages and noted their quality and the speed with which they were copied.
“It’s fantastic,” he said.
With a myriad of payment figures thrown out by Strenka and Ikon representatives depending on how many copiers are kept, which models, and which previous maintenance contracts would remain or be taken over by Ikon, no action was taken by the board.
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