By Dan Murphy
Last week, the Yonkers City Council approved Mayor Mike Spano’s proposed budget, which passed the budget by a 6-1 vote, with Council President Mike Khader voting no. Mayor Spano then signed the $1.3 Billion budget into law.
The next day, the Yonkers Board of Education approved its spending plan for the upcoming school year. By unanimous vote, the Trustees approved a $633,050,499 budget. Superintendent of Schools Dr. Edwin M. Quezada presented a balanced budget noting the District received $628,450,499 from the City of Yonkers adopted budget and $4,600,000 in approved non-capital improvement plan requests that include library and textbooks, technology and software, classroom furniture, as well as Special Education, sports and facilities maintenance equipment.
“This is a historical year for education in Yonkers,” stated Board of Education President, Rev. Steve Lopez. For the first time the school district received a $12 million increase to the Maintenance of Effort. These recurring funds are critically important to address the District’s annual budget structural challenges due to significant non-recurring revenue. Rev. Lopez noted, “Mayor Mike Spano and the City Council fulfilled their commitment to our community and took actions providing a pro-children pro-education budget allocation. Thank you, on behalf of our students, families and staff.”
Dr. Quezada added, “To get where we are today took a lot work and I feel comfortable with the budget presented to the Trustees. Throughout this budget process there was tremendous collaboration among the Mayor, Deputy Mayor, City’s Finance team, the Council President and Council Members who worked collaboratively with the Trustees and my team. Everyone was fully engaged in doing what is right for children. The City’s budget also includes funding for Yonkers My Brother’s Keeper, YMCA SNUG anti-violence program and urgently needed school building repairs. These are significant contributions to the health and welfare of our children.”
The budget for the YPS did not include any last minute, additional funding, from Albany. State legislators and Governor Andrew Cuomo decided not to add more to the $27 Million in additional State Education Aid that YPS received this year, thanks to Senate Majority Leader Andrea Stewart-Cousins.
The school district was $7 Million short from their funding goal, and in the end, will have to live with the 4% increase in budget year to budget year funding.
We wanted to recap the City Council budget and give you the comments of each councilmember on this year’s budget. Council Majority Leader Michael Sabatino said, “ We have kept the tax increase under the tax cap, and we are bonding the cost of books at $4.6M. We are approving the Mayor’s budget, which gives $12 million more to our school system, and that is what the increase in tax will fund. That’s what we came up with and still stayed under the cap.”
Councilman Anthony Merante, said, “Although its not easy to vote for a tax increase, we had to make some tough decisions. Part of the tax increase is the result of a large number of tax certioraris that were settled this year, and that resulted in 1.5% of the tax increase. This budget keeps our streets safe, there are no layoffs to police, fire of DPW, and our schools are getting more funding. We also put some money into the capital budget for infrastructure. The City of Yonkers continues to move forward and I’m happy to be a part of its continued success.”
Minority Leader, Councilman Mike Breen said, “You can’t always get what you want. New York State has let us down again. I’ve been involved in 8 budgets and never voted no, because its important to work together in a bi-partisan manner. This budget stays under the tax cap and we are preserving city services. This is not a perfect budget but I’m here to vote on it tonight.”
Councilman John Rubbo said, “This budget continues to allow the city to steer the ship forward. The budget has the single largest contribution to the Board of Education, by working in true cooperative fashion between the council and the BOE. I’m proud that we restored JV sports starting in the spring of next year. The city is contributing $67m to rebuild the schools, 12m in recurring aid and 5m for books and technology.
“We started this budget with a 60 m hole in boe, and thanks to the city and our state officials we have nearly closed that gap. This budget also provides much needed infrastructure work and the largest allocation of paving money for our streets in the last decade, $8 Million,” said Rubbo.
Councilwoman Shanae Williams said, “I’m supporting this budget because we have done everything we can for our schools. Our children deserve the very vest and while not an ideal budget, this is a good budget and I’m proud to support it.”
Councilwoman Corazon Pineda-Isaac questioned Council President Mike Khader for voting on the budget. “We chose to be legislators and we have to make the tough and difficult decisions. Last year we had to raise property taxes by more than 6%. I’m proud that in this budget we are under the tax cap.”
“I would like to see a unanimous vote in support of this budget because it provides $12 Million more for education. Voting no on the budget is voting no on the $12 Million increase for education. Our residents will get tax rebate checks with this budget. Voting against the budget is voting no against the rebate checks our residents will receive. “
“We asked everyone what they wanted to see in the budget and I understand that the Council President didn’t want a water rate increase. We asked him for alternatives, and he wanted a lower property tax increase but that meant cuts to services.
“There were no other solutions, the best solution is this budget. I think to vote no on the budget is irresponsible because this job is about making tough decisions. We need brave legislators and I need brave legislators. You do that by leading,” said Pineda-Isaac.
Council President Khader said “I’m glad that there will be an increase of $12.1 Million for education. That’s a great start and would like to see more moving forward. There are some parts of the budgets that I support, but I can’t support a budget with a water rate increase.
“All stakeholders were unified and Albany did respond and did the best they could for this year. But the water rate increase could have been avoided. We live in a democracy and we are allowed vote how we wish. Raising property taxes or fees gets passed along to the taxpayer and homeowner and that is something they cannot sustain.”
“I won’t attack my colleagues. We can all shake hands whether we agree or disagree. Questioning someone’s vote isn’t beneficial because there is more work to do,” said Khader.
