Paul Szmal: Good morning, it's 8.38, it's the Friday extravaganza on FLX Morning, it's also a guest-o-rama Friday, all slots filled this morning, and our final guest of the day is our Auburn City Clerk, Chuck Mason. Good morning.
Chuck Mason: Hey, good morning, Ted. So, communities went 15 years without any increase in AIM funding in the state budget until this year, and the council was discussing a resolution last night to call on both the state and our representatives to push the governor and push the legislature to keep those increases coming.
Paul Szmal: That's right, and this is a little bit early in the process for us to be doing this, but the City of Auburn, we've always kind of communicated these messages up to our state officials, but usually we do it in February once the governor's budget has been announced, and we're in communication with our state legislators to try to influence the results of the proposed state budget. This year, together with our New York Conference of Mayors organization, and that's kind of the organization that ties together all of the cities and villages throughout New York State, so that we can kind of communicate to our officials in Albany matters of importance. NICOM members are trying to get these types of resolutions passed at the local level to do two things, Ted, really. One is to recognize the governor and the legislature for the fact that they did put this additional money in to last year's budget, which is the current budget that we're currently in. They did put an extra $50 million in there for what they call temporary AIM funding, and then the second thing we're hoping to accomplish with this resolution is to communicate to them the importance of that money being maintained in the budget, not to be viewed as temporary, but that it's really needed to be added to the AIM program, and that these increases each year are essential to local governments being able to provide the services that we provide.
Now, what's happening up in Albany right now behind the scenes is there's actually people that are already working on that budget proposal that will be presented by the governor usually the third week of January. So what we're hoping with this initiative is that we get the word out and up to our state officials in Albany early, make sure that they realize that the increase, the temporary increase that they provided in last year's budget was appreciated, but is really needed to be made permanent.
Chuck Mason: Do you know roughly what percentage of the city budget is through those AIM funds?
Paul Szmal: Well, in the city of Auburn, the normal AIM amount is about $4.9 million, and that's, that's probably about 20% of our revenues for the general fund portion of our city's budget. So it's very, very critical for the city of Auburn that we get these funds, and the other thing that's great about these funds is this is the unrestricted aid that you get, so it really helps us to offset the general government services at the local level.
Chuck Mason: The city assessor was before the council last night with a presentation on a much misunderstood and a much maligned program, and that's assessments.
Paul Szmal: That's right, and this is an attempt to just continue to educate the public. There are letters that are being mailed out as part of the process of keeping the assessment on track, so we wanted to get a presentation in front of the council, and we'll be back probably in a few weeks with a follow-up presentation based on some questions that were asked by the council last night. But it's a never-ending puzzle and a never-ending math problem that assessors are always solving to keep things fair and balanced for local property taxpayers.
The assessment process, the work that they're beginning to do now is for the reassessment that would occur in 2026, so they're out front of this a little bit, but it's really just research that they're doing with sending letters out to these property owners to get some information on the properties to help the process along, and any information that's provided would not affect the assessment in the 2025 cycle. It would all be used towards the future revalue that would take place in 2026. So our city's assessor, Jean Hearing, last night was on hand with the city comptroller, and she presented, and she'll be back probably in a few weeks to present a little bit more. It is a very thorough presentation that you really got to be able to take some time to absorb all the math and all the reasoning behind, and no town is really ever on the same cycle, so it's kind of like each municipality does their own kind of thing and their own timing. So it's really a matter of keeping things fair and balanced for the property taxpayers to make sure that we're not paying too much, and make sure we're not paying too little when it comes to the other taxing authorities such as the schools and the county. So more to come on this, really that presentation last night just to educate the council and educate the public on the overall process.
Chuck Mason: Well, and it's important that people open these letters and check them out because it's an inventory. So if, for example, if the square footage is off or it says you have a pool and you don't anymore or that kind of thing, you want to get that corrected before the next assessment.
Paul Szmal: Most definitely, and that's what our assessor was discussing last night. She's actually had people write their response back with thank you letters because of the fact that it squares away some of the information. There might be some old, outdated things on your records here at City Hall. So I want to just keep that stuff up to date. It's in your best interest to do so, and it's in your best interest to have an assessment that truly reflects the market value that's out there at any given time.
Chuck Mason: Also at the council meeting last night, Seth Jensen, Director of Municipal Utilities, and Matt Marco from Brown and Caldwell discussed the biosolids work and the overflow retention updates. So remind us about these sewer plant upgrades that are taking place.
Paul Szmal: And this is a significant undertaking by our Department of Municipal Utilities down at the Wastewater Treatment Plant. It is a project which is totally funded with a $94 million budget. Construction started earlier this year at the beginning of the construction season, and it'll continue all through 2025, and we're hoping that this project will be 100% complete by the summertime of 2026. So this is a huge undertaking down at our Wastewater Treatment Facility. The good news is work is underway, and quite a bit of work got accomplished this summer. So Seth and Matt Marco from the Caldwell Design Group that's working with us on this project, the engineers, they gave a presentation that kind of gave a quick update on all the work that did, in fact, happen down there this year. There's been quite a bit of construction activity. And then the second half of the presentation focused on the overflow retention facility that's going to be replaced kind of as an add-on to this project once we realized that we had a handle on the financing of all the other construction that's going on, that there was going to be some room to be able to include this overflow retention facility. And not only room to include it, but efficiencies to be gained because you might as well take care of the reconstruction of this facility at the same time that you've got all these contractors and engineers on the project at the same time. So there's some efficiencies to be gained there. And this is a facility that was originally constructed in the 1930s here in Auburn. So the overflow retention facility project was really kind of focused on in greater detail last night.
Now this, I did want to mention the fact that because there's, you know, there's been a lot of talk. There was just an election and as everybody knows, there was a lot of talk. I want to just point out the fact that this project is being heavily funded through the Bipartisan Infrastructure Act that was really, you know, always kind of in the news over these last few months as there's been an election that's taken place. But this is one of the many projects around the country that's being funded to the tune of millions of dollars of the Bipartisan Infrastructure Act money that's being put into this project. And some of it's direct grant money, others of it is 0% bipartisan infrastructure bond financing, which is really helping the city to get this important work done. The last time we made a significant investment in a wastewater treatment facility here in Auburn was in the 1990s. So this is an investment that's really going to get us through the next two, three decades. And really, we would not, absolutely would not have been able to be able to do this project had that bipartisan infrastructure law funding program of President Biden and Chuck Schumer, our local New York State Senator, really led the way to get that funding passed. And you're seeing it be put right to work here in Auburn.
Now, with the wastewater treatment plant being kind of on the northwestern edge of the city, it's not an incredibly visible location, but the amount of construction activity that's been down there this summer has been substantial. And we're doing everything we can to try to keep the updates on our city website. But this is an impressive project. It's just that it's off the beaten path, so you don't really see the work happening. But it is an unbelievable amount of construction activity, and it'll be continuing. We'll probably have another half dozen reports on the progress of this project over the next couple of years as we continue the construction in 2025 and complete it in 2026.
Chuck Mason: We're less than two weeks from Thanksgiving. That means changes to the council schedule and also trash pickup.
Paul Szmal: Yeah, so easy for the council. We have one more council meeting this month. That'll be next week's council meeting on November 21st. And then there will be no council meeting on November 28th due to the Thanksgiving holiday. And then just, we're a couple weeks out. I just want to remind everybody that in the city of Auburn itself, in the municipality of the city of Auburn, if your trash pickup day is a Tuesday, Wednesday, or Thursday, the week of Thanksgiving, beginning on Monday, November 25th, if you're a Tuesday person for trash, you'll be picked up on Monday. It'll be one day early pickup for the Tuesday, Wednesday, and Thursday people. Friday people that week won't be affected. But this helps our city employees to be able to celebrate the Thanksgiving holiday with their family at home. And we just asked for everybody to help us spread the word. It's always a wake-up call for you when you drive out of your driveway and see the garbage truck on the street and forgot to put your garbage out for the week, causes you a lot of strife. So we want everybody to remember Thanksgiving week is coming up and you'll have one day early pickup in the city.
Chuck Mason: I will be at Casey Park in about two weeks or so for the first Auburn Bruins hockey game. But Open Skate is underway. And you've got the Veterans and Family Free Skate this year.
Paul Szmal: That's right. Kevin Swab is the person that heads up the Kew County Veterans Service Agency. And this is a program that that agency has sponsored and the city is working in partnership with them to be able to provide free skating for veterans and their families during the Open Skate at Casey Park this season. Open Skate hours, Open Skate is underway as of the beginning of November. The hours are Fridays 6 till 9, Saturdays 3 till 7, and Sundays 3 till 7. It's $5, includes your skates if you need skates for rental, and great activity in the wintertime. And this is one thing, Ted, that we certainly love to promote but really doesn't need a lot of promotion. We've already had some huge crowds down at Open Skate for the last couple of weeks. But what a great opportunity. Any veteran, you can bring your kids down, bring your grandkids down, just show your veteran's ID and you and your family would be allowed for free Open Skate on that particular visit to Casey Park Ice Rink. And this being handled by the Kew County Veterans Service Agency, we thank them for all their work to show, you know, we had Veterans Day earlier this week on Monday, we had a great ceremony over at Veterans Memorial Park, and just another small way that we can thank our veterans for their service.
Chuck Mason: All right, auburnny.gov if you missed about the trash pickup schedule, but basically it's the Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday people go, or no, I'm messing it up, Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday. Anyway, check it at the website because I'm going to mess it all up here. Chuck, thanks for the time as always, we appreciate it.
Paul Szmal: Thank you, Ted, have a great weekend, everybody.
