A leaner and modest city budget passed City Council on Tuesday – a spending plan that thus far avoids significant cuts despite declining and uncertain federal revenue.
The budget comes amid the expiration of federal COVID relief dollars and the threat of withholding of funds by the federal government to sanctuary cities. The city is currently being sued by the Trump administration over its sanctuary policy, and while the move to withhold funds was blocked by a court ruling in April, the administration has continued to threaten similar tactics.
The bill passed Tuesday by a vote of 6-3. Councilmembers Stanley Martin, Kim Smith, and Mary Lupien voted no. The budget is set to go into effect on July 1.
Dubbed the “prosperity budget” by Mayor Malik Evans, the $680.5 million spending plan is $27 million smaller than the current year’s approved budget. While the tax levy remained flat, residential property taxes will increase slightly, due to a state adjustment to the tax burden split by residential and commercial properties. The average homeowner is expected to see a tax increase of $2.30 per month, while the average commercial property owner would see a decrease of $34.55 per month.
The budget marks the first since the city exhausted the $202.1 million allocation it received in federal pandemic relief dollars from the 2021 American Rescue Plan Act, or ARPA. Coupled with the federal funding uncertainties, that made for a tougher budget season, but one the city had made manageable, said Councilmember Mitch Gruber, who leads Council’s finance committee.
“A lot of other municipalities used ARPA dollars to plug holes, and we didn’t do that very often,” Gruber said. “That gave us a much easier year than a lot of our sister cities to the east and west and south have had it.”
The loss of ARPA dollars accounts for about $20 million in the budget drop this year. The remaining $6.3 million is from cuts to the city’s Capital Improvement Plan and operations.
The budget this year contains little in the way of surprises or large new initiatives. It does include some modest new programs. For example, the budget sets aside $332,400 for the ACTION Team. Housed in the Office of Violence Prevention, a part of the Mayor’s Office, the team will offer a police alternative response to non-emergency calls for service. The city has billed the program as specializing in conflict resolution and connecting community members to services.
The budget also shifts a Rochester Fire Department lieutenant into a full-time code enforcement position. That move was spurred by a 2023 fire on Otis Street.
Virtually all city departments saw stable funding in this year’s budget.
Martin, in voting no, lamented that the bill does little to allocate funds to public safety alternatives to police, as well as fails to include funding for a study on a potential public utility replacement for Rochester Gas & Electric.
The city had approved $500,000 for such a study in July 2023, on the contingency that the Monroe County Legislature took the lead on performing the study. It has yet to do so.
“Although the money is reserved and has been sitting there for nearly two years, there has been a failure of leadership to make a move and fund a study and support our community members,” Martin said.
