ITHACA, N.Y. — City of Ithaca Mayor Svante Myrick presented his 2021 budget proposal to the Common Council Wednesday evening, holding the line on the tax rate from the 2020 budget.

The tax levy will increase by 7.23 percent, attributed to rising assessments. It contains a flat tax rate, holding at $11.77 per thousand of assessed property value.

The economic fallout from the COVID-19 pandemic, as expected, is taking a sizeable bite out of the budget. Myrick estimates that without the difficult furloughs and cost-saving decisions the city made early on in the pandemic, they would be facing a deficit in the neighborhood of $4.3 million. As things stand, the city was able to find savings of about $1.75 million. Leaving the city with a slightly smaller if not still daunting task of closing a roughly $2.5 million budget gap.

Staffing will take a hit, while sparing most of the existing workforce. Across all departments, 28 positions will be defunded, seven positions will have their hours reduced and two employees will be laid off.

This is only the beginning of the budget process, with three public hearings and series of meetings line up head of adoption before the end of the year.

Department of Public Works facing two layoffs

Positions being proposed for cut in this year’s budget come almost entirely from un-funding vacant positions that the city had previously budgeted money for. The exception being an executive assistant and the DPW manager of fiscal operations.

The department also loses positions for Building & Grounds Maintenance Worker, Working Supervisor for Sign Shop, Maintainer, two Light Equipment Operators, two Laborers and a Motor Equipment Mechanic — all positions that are currently unoccupied.

Ithaca Police, fire budgets trimmed

The budget proposes a base budget of $12,418,616 for the Ithaca Police Department, down 2.8 % from the department’s $12,775,722 budget in 2020’s amended budget. The savings comes largely from eight vacant officer positions that this budget defunds.

The modesty of the cut is sure to draw the ire of activists who have called for significant budget reductions in the department since the killing of George Floyd in May. IPD’s unfilled positions remainded unfilled as part of the city’s cost-savings measures adopted after the pandemic prompted budget changes earlier this year.

“We have eight vacancies of police officers, they’ve had these eight vacancies all year, so this is the current staffing levels. What I’m proposing is that continues in 2021, but what I am proposing is that we actually un-fund them,” said Myrick. “A budget necessity to get the tax rate (increase) to zero while still actually fulfilling our missions. To do that, IPD has been pulling that off, but the strain is showing in our officers, the strain is showing on the public.”

To address this strain, the mayor is tasking the department with creating an Operational Efficiency Plan to be put into effect as soon as possible. The mayor says he would like to see the department reform beat assignments and coverage to maximize coverage and shifts in staffing levels so there are more officers on during peak call times and less at time that are normally less busy. He is also proposing the department changing how it categorizes and prioritizes the types of calls that the department responds to.

The Ithaca Fire Department will also lose two firefighter positions and a deputy chief positions. All three of those positions are currently vacant.

The next steps

Members of the public wishing to offer input on the budget process still have several opportunities. The first of three public comment sessions take place Wednesday, Oct. 14 at 6 p.m.

Find a complete schedule of upcoming budget meetings and the department that will be discussed here.

You can find previous budget documents on the city’s website here.