By Dan Murphy
As Mayor Mike Spano, members of the City Council, and the city’s unions review and explore their options to help close a budget deficit of $25 million on the city portion of the Yonkers budget, one option under review is to impose a garbage fee of $300 per apartment unit and home. This would raise $20 million, which would help close the deficit and keep the city from laying off 182 workers.
Although the garbage fee would be unpopular, the city’s leaders are having a tough time finding other options to raise $20 million. A 4 percent property tax increase would exceed the tax cap and only raise $7 million. An increase in the real estate transfer tax is said to be off the table. Raising the city’s income tax surcharge is another option.
“But if the city could collect $20 million with one fee, and we wouldn’t have to go over the tax cap, it’s an option,” said one official. “Some of the Republican councilmembers won’t raise property taxes above the cap, so it might be up to the Democrats if they want a large tax increase.”
Others are hoping for another “Albany bailout” and are waiting to put their cards on the table until that possibility is gone. Some are said to be worried that the only help from Albany will come in the form of a Financial Control Board, which will be avoided at all costs.
Two recent letters to the editor show the different viewpoints from the different stakeholders in the city about the budget and the yearly, recurring budget crisis.
The first letter, from Yonkers resident Joe Clarke, asks why the city and the taxpayers haven’t received increased revenue from the many downtown development projects built and underway. Clarke, whose letter can be found on page 4, xxxxxxxxx calls the lack of property taxes paid by new development “a handout to the wealthy.”
Many downtown development projects agree to Payments in Lieu of Taxes that are made to the city. So, basically, the new downtown development properties are paying property taxes through a PILOT.
But Clarke’s complaint has been echoed again and again by Yonkers homeowners and taxpayers over many years concerning many Yonkers development projects.
Another letter we received is a form letter from the Yonkers Council of Parent-Teacher Associations. Titled, “Yonkers Parents Have Had Enough – Tell the City of Yonkers to Take Care of its Children’s Education,” it urges the City Council to close the $40 million budget deficit, and restore some of the 211 jobs eliminations in the proposed Yonkers Public Schools budget that Superintendent Dr. Edwin Quezada has submitted.
In addition to taxpayers asking for new development to pay their fair share, and education advocates calling on more funding for the YPS, there are city union members and others in Yonkers wondering why the City of Yonkers goes through a yearly budget crisis when other cities in Westchester are able to balance their budgets without layoffs.
“Why do we have to go through this in Yonkers every year, when cities like Mt. Vernon can balance their budgets without layoffs?” asked Police Benevolent Association President Keith Olson last month on News 12.
The final segment of the Yonkers population are the homeowners, many on the east side of the city, who do not want their taxes increased over the property tax cap. Those communities are still represented by Republican Councilmembers Mike Breen, John Rubbo and Anthony Merante. (Rubbo and Merante were elected to the council last November, and ran on controlling property taxes.)
Council President Mike Khader was also just elected last November, and like Rubbo and Merante, he and doesn’t want to bust through the tax cap, but also wants to find that balance between taxes and more funding to avoid layoffs.
