Paul Szmal: And welcome back to FLX Morning on Finger Lakes News Radio, coming up on 8.39. It's Friday morning, so that means that we're visiting with Auburn City Clerk Chuck Mason to go over last night's city council meeting. Good morning, Chuck. How are you?
Chuck Mason: Good morning, Paul. Good. How are you today? Enjoying the sunshine streaming through the window this morning. Hopefully, you've got a window in your office as well.
Paul Szmal: That's correct. Looking good over here. Slowly but surely, we're getting towards better days.
Chuck Mason: Yeah, absolutely. Let's kick off our review of last night's meeting by talking about an important proclamation that came up as part of the opening of the meeting.
Paul Szmal: That's right. Mayor Genitino last night with a proclamation to welcome home our Vietnam veterans. March 29th is the official Welcome Home Vietnam Veterans Day. Mayor Genitino, making the presentation last night to Mr. Dale Bush and former Mayor Michael Quill, who came to last night's council meeting, both gentlemen are Vietnam veterans. And this message is heartfelt from the City of Auburn to all of our Vietnam veterans. Welcome home. Veterans today are seen in a different light than they were 50 years ago when our Vietnam veterans, in fact, did return home. It wasn't the same set of circumstances. So we want to do everything we can in today's world to let them know that their service is appreciated. And we thank them for their service and we welcome home all of our Vietnam veterans.
Paul Szmal: Much appreciated in the sentiment and thought that went into that proclamation. In the resolutions, there was a little bit of housework that needed to be done for the city manager position.
Chuck Mason: That's right. As everybody is well aware, Jennifer Haynes is going to become our city's next city manager. The council had decided that last year in October. However, as we've neared the finish line of city manager Jeff Dugard's time, he in fact has set a final date for himself. His final date of work will be May 30th of this year. So just a couple of months from now. And so therefore, Jennifer Haynes will begin her tenure as city manager on May 31st. So the council last night unanimously approving a resolution to adjust her start date and make the necessary adjustment to the contract that the council entered into last year in October. So the contract was amended to reflect that her start date will in fact be May 31st.
So Jenny Haynes has been working hard for the last three months with city manager Dugard working in the assistant city manager capacity to get herself prepared for taking over the job. Thanks to the great collaborative effort that Jeff Dugard and Jenny have had, she will be ready for taking the reins on May 31st. And they've been working hard behind the scenes over the last couple of months on getting ready for the presentation of a city budget and that's going to be a lot of the work that's going to be done between now and May 31st in front of the city council. So it'll really be a budget that Jenny Haynes is familiar with and she'll hit the ground running on May 31st with the city council getting ready to adopt the next fiscal year's budget.
Paul Szmal: Yeah, she is literally jumping into the deep end of the pool with that. We're talking with Auburn City Clerk Chuck Mason here on FLX Morning. There was a presentation from the Auburn Police Department as part of last night's council meeting.
Chuck Mason: That's right. Auburn Police Department officers were on hand last night to make a presentation to council on utilizing special funds to purchase a rescue vehicle for the department. This would be a very specialized vehicle that would be used in really high significant high risk events and rescue events or natural incidents, natural disaster incidents. The officers last night were discussing how it's unique in that it would be not a piece of equipment that the police department will be out there with every day, but when you saw this piece of equipment out in the community, you would realize there's a high risk event underway so that the vehicle would give the department an extra tool to handle and protect our officers, especially during mass unrest events and natural disasters and equitable sharing funds are the funds that the police department receives in its work with the drug task force. It's money that the city gets back goes into a special fund that can be used for special equipment or training for our officers. And so they're proposing that the equitable sharing funding would be used to purchase this vehicle.
So the council last night, listening to the presentation, no decisions were made yet. But this will probably be a topic of future council meetings. And it would be of no cost to the city's general fund because of the fact that they would, they would be able to purchase this vehicle with that equitable sharing money. So more to come on this. Chief Deputy Chief Spangler out here last night to explain that once a decision is made, there's still going to be quite a lengthy process, it would the vehicle would need to be put out to bid. And then once the bid is awarded, the vehicle would actually be constructed for the our police department. So this isn't necessarily a vehicle that would show up next week, but probably need a year year and a half worth of lead time before we actually see the vehicle in Auburn. But the council last night very receptive to the police department's presentation. And we will probably learn more about this project moving forward and then in the future council meeting weeks and probably as part of budget discussion.
Paul Szmal: And that was really the recap of what was essentially a light council agenda. I almost want to say it's the calm before the oncoming storm.
Chuck Mason: Well, that's right. We had a lot of work to do over the next several weeks and next week's council meeting kind of starts the public unveiling of the department by department city budget reviews. So the city's fiscal year runs from July 1 through June 30 of every year. So the council for the next several weeks will be working pretty closely on worrying about adopting the budget for the fiscal year, which will start on July 1 of 2025. And we'll be doing a deep dive department by department, taking a walk through every department's budget here over the next four weeks during the month of April. And so we'll have very busy agendas and be looking at each budget line by line. And it's always a challenging year for the city budget. It doesn't really ever seem like we're in a situation where things are fantastic revenue wise or expense wise. This year is probably going to be just as much of a challenge as any other year has been. So lots of work to come from the mayor and the council and the city staff over these next several weeks as we see what's in store for the city's next fiscal year.
Paul Szmal: Chuck, take us beyond the month of April and the review process. What will happen now once we get into the month of May and start to get into June to get closer to that fiscal July 1 year date?
Chuck Mason: Yep. So further along in the budget process, once we get to about the mid part of May, the council will probably have a budget that's closer to a final draft and they'll put that budget up for a public hearing and the public hearing is scheduled on May 22nd. And then the council is scheduled to vote on a final budget on June 13th of this year. And then that final budget is the budget that would go into effect on July 1. So, you know, we're really looking at the next two and a half months where the council meetings are really dedicated. Each week we'll be taking a different look at the budget and all the way from the beginning with the department of presentations to that June 13th budget approval date. And that sets the rates for the property tax bills that go out in the fiscal year starts on July 1.
Paul Szmal: All right. As always, Chuck, we appreciate it. Thank you very much, sir.
Chuck Mason: Well, thank you. Have a great weekend, everybody.
Paul Szmal: All right. It is 848 on FLX morning.
