‘Recovering economy’ driving force behind proposed 2023 budget

Early last month, County Administrator Lisa Holmes announced the release of the Recommended 2023 Tompkins County Operating Budget, available at tinyurl.com/2fqtxppm. As county leaders explained, while the pandemic continues to have less of a direct effect this year compared to last (tinyurl.com/2eje7mgz), widespread and reverberating indirect effects are the driving factors behind many of the county’s largest expenses planned for next year.

Legislature Chair Shawna Black summarized the most significant challenges impacting 2023’s budget.

“This year, our biggest struggle is going to be working with a recovering economy, and also we’re really working to engage new carriers with our airport,” she said.

Holmes said that inflation — caused by a wide variety of factors including geopolitical conflicts and lingering pandemic effects — has been on her and plenty of others’ minds since the budget planning process began.

“I’ve been watching closely as the [Federal Reserve] continues to increase the interest rates for borrowing and so, [there’s] concern about whether that will push us into a recession and if so, how large and how long,” she said. “So, the cost of borrowing will affect us in terms of our capital program. It will also impact if it will slow down the housing market, possibly.”

The pandemic is also a major factor contributing to the numerous challenges facing the airline and airport industries, which is why a significant portion of 2023’s proposed budget consists of financial recovery support for the Ithaca Tompkins International Airport. Specifically, it “includes $342,481 to pay half the debt service” accrued after the completion of the airport’s $35 million terminal expansion project in 2019, according to Holmes’ letter to the county following the budget’s release (tinyurl.com/2nuu6fjj).

While pre-pandemic conditions predicted the airport would be able to pay off this debt on its own, various developments since 2020 have made that difficult, to say the least. As Tompkins Weekly covered earlier this year (tinyurl.com/2htkzj7w), American Airlines has pulled all of its flights from the airport, and Airport Director Roxan Noble added, “We still haven’t recovered to pre-pandemic flight status.”

Noble explained how the county’s contribution will help the airport.

“We have to remain competitive,” she said. “That’s one of the key factors to retaining and gaining new service — we have to make sure we remain competitive with our rates and charges for our airlines. … We need some assistance to offset and to cover operating expenses, to move forward and to grow. And with the help of the county, we will be able to do that.”

Another significant factor impacting 2023’s budget is labor, specifically salary increases and position additions across various departments. Several sources mentioned an expected doubling in the mandated wages for assigned counsel, which were outlined in the state’s new budget (tinyurl.com/2hlwo2we).

“We’re anticipating that the state’s going to mandate a hefty increase in compensation for assigned counsel, which … is perfectly reasonable because that rate is way under market,” said Legislator Deborah Dawson, who also chairs the Budget, Capital and Personnel Committee. “But we’re going to have to figure out how to afford that cost because even though the state mandates it, as usual, they don’t generally pay for it. So, stuff like that factors into maintenance of effort because we have no choice but to comply with mandates.”

Holmes told Tompkins Weekly that would mean a “$1.8 million increase” in the county’s expenses, which is why “we will be advocating for the state to pay for that increase in rate.” This wage hike would also be on top of the wage increase for county employees based on a new living wage (tinyurl.com/2ecl66qp).

Additional positions that are not state mandated largely center around the county’s goal of bolstering its health care services, as Black explained.

“I think what’s becoming more and more clear is the fact that people are coming forward with economic struggles, as well as health struggles, that they’ve put off for the past two years,” she said. “And then, of course, we’re also seeing mental health that continues to surface in our community. So, we’re really trying to accommodate those needs and balance the budget.”

As Holmes explained in her letter, the 2023 proposed budget “reflects an increase of 32 positions over 2022,” 11 of which belonging to the Tompkins County Health Department. As Public Health Director Frank Kruppa explained, the pandemic created an increase in demand for all sorts of health care, which led to increased state aid to accommodate.

“That really helped allow us to make permanent some positions that the Legislature had funded in a one-time fashion and also kind of shore up some of the other places we had been cutting over the years,” he said.

Kruppa added that much of his department’s budget seeks to “make permanent some of the positions that we had created in the last couple of years, particularly our community health worker programs.” That’s in addition to more mental health positions, particularly social services, he said.

The Department of Emergency Response has also seen a significant increase in its budget from 2022 to 2023, largely attributed to personnel increases. Department Director Michael Stitley told the Legislature Sept. 8 (tinyurl.com/2ebt7rz4) that his department’s 2023 recommended budget totals $3.8 million, up $511,146 from 2022, with the increase largely coming from two additional dispatcher positions and a data analyst position.

Stitley explained to Tompkins Weekly that he’s hoping the addition of two new dispatchers will significantly improve the dispatch center’s functioning.

“Sometimes, you could be on the phone taking a 911 call, and there’s a fire or EMS department need, and they have to juggle that,” he said. “If, through the final budget process, we are awarded these two additional [full-time employees], and we can get through some of the staffing issues we have, then we will be able to have a supervisor with a new scheduling strategy. And that will allow us to have a dedicated 911 intake screen and somebody who could actually just focus on that, and then [the] fire and EMS dispatcher could focus on their responsibility.”

Some of the previously mentioned personnel additions are part of the county’s dedication to alternative response methods under its ongoing Reimagining Public Safety process, according to Holmes’ letter.

Reimagining efforts on the county level are being coordinated by the Community Justice Center, whose work plan (bit.ly/cjc-workplans) details several Reimagining initiatives expected to be funded through over-target requests (OTRs), according to Holmes at the Expanded Budget Committee’s Sept. 26 meeting (tinyurl.com/2oqmvcrw).

The center’s director, Monalita Smiley, told Tompkins Weekly that some of the recommendations under Reimagining Public Safety require monetary support, though not all, so the county’s help will go a long way. She described some of the efforts she’s expecting the Community Justice Center to tackle once the 2023 budget is approved.

“We’ve got a rollout of more collaborative plans coming up, which include the officer wellness, data disclosure and traffic control study, which is just one element of the officer-initiated traffic stop recommendation, and then the community healing,” she said. “So, we’ve got lots of plans in the works to get things moving once things have been approved.”

The “recovery” focus of this year’s budget is evident throughout the previously detailed changes as well as plenty of others too numerous to cover in one article. As Black explained, the county is ultimately trying to come into 2023 well prepared.

“The fact that we’re entering into the upcoming year guarded, and also that we’re playing it safe because we realize that the economy is very volatile, and we’re presenting a very conservative budget for next year — I think that that should provide all of us with a sense of safety as we move forward in the next year,” she said.

The Legislature held its first forum on the 2023 proposed budget last month (tinyurl.com/2zu2ym4y). Dawson said last week that the “next phase will be considering the OTRs our legislators filed to either add to Lisa’s budget or remove an OTR that she’s recommended.” The first meeting to do so was scheduled for Oct. 3, after the writing of this article. Dawson expects at least one more meeting within the week and a possible third if needed.

“And then, we will consider voting on a recommended budget, and then there will be a public hearing,” she said. “And then, we will have a Legislature meeting where we adopt a budget.”

Jessica Wickham is the managing editor of Tompkins Weekly. Send story ideas to them at editorial@VizellaMedia.com.