Paul Szmal: All right, well, we're getting some Zoom difficulties here. Let me just see. Chuck, are you there? Can you hear me? Are you there, Ted? Oh, yeah. Can you hear me? Yes, I can hear you. OK, there we go. I, for some reason, we had some kind of Zoom mix up here, so.
Chuck Mason: Yeah, it kicked me off. I was on with the original, it kicked me off. Now we're, it appears as well, we're back on. It's my fault because every couple of months, instead of clicking start Zoom, I accidentally click uninstall and then I have to rapidly reinstall it in about two minutes. So anyway, it was the reorganizational meeting for the city council last night with a lot of just routine housekeeping measures. The council established its meeting calendar for the upcoming year, adopted an investment policy and a procurement in the surplus policy. Anything noteworthy in any of those are just pretty much routine stuff.
Paul Szmal: Pretty much routine, as you said, at the first meeting of the year, we usually kind of do a lot of housekeeping review things required by state law. The council is to review the and approve the procurement policy and the investment policy of the city of Auburn organization. So the council last night, there were no changes this year to either of those policies. So the council just following through with its annual review. Those are the policies that our staff will follow when making decisions over the course of a year. And the procurement policy in particular is a policy that's kind of important to day to day purchasing. And whenever we're procuring anything or going out to bid for anything, that's the policy that sets the guidelines for the city staff to use. So it's an important policy.
And then setting establishing the calendar. What we decided to do this year was just to set a calendar for the entire year, rather than doing three or four resolutions throughout the year to make changes for the holidays and stuff. So we just took a look ahead on the forecast. And so now you can see, Ted, all the Fridays that we won't need to have a radio interview because we already know the Thursdays that we will not have a council meeting this year. So we can plan ahead accordingly.
And then the annual budget, city budget is always the most important process of the year. And city staff already kind of behind the scenes putting the pieces in place to get ready for the 2025-2026 city budget. And the council's first action on that is to establish the budget calendar so the council did that last night. Basically, what you'll see is a presentation of the annual budget to the council in early April with a lot of department head presentations throughout the month of April. Council will hold a public hearing on the budget at the May 22nd meeting. And then they've set the date of June 5th, Thursday night, June 5th. 2025 is the target date that they would adopt the annual budget.
So the council last night, going through this stuff pretty quickly, all votes were unanimous and puts the pieces in place for hopefully what's going to be a productive year. We got lots of busy meetings to come. But last night was pretty short and sweet.
Chuck Mason: And then the busiest part of the agenda, probably the most important part, the city is again undertaking the process of attempting to impose a room tax through home rule. Take us through the history of these efforts in the last few years.
Paul Szmal: Yes, this is something that we made an attempt last year with a home rule request to the state legislature in Albany. We had great cooperation from Senator Rachel May. Her staff wrote the legislation and got it introduced for us on the Senate side. However, after a lot of discussion and with Assemblyman Lamont days, he was not willing to sponsor it on the assembly side. But that doesn't change things from the perspective that the mayor and city council honestly believe that the city of Auburn needs one of these home rule requests to be able to implement an occupancy tax because the revenue is needed here at the city.
Last year at the state level, three regional cities, Syracuse, New York, Cortland, New York and Binghamton, New York, were successful with establishing their own hotel occupancy taxes through home rule request legislation. The number is up to it's we're well over like 60 municipalities across the state that have adopted their own home rule requests legislation for occupancy taxes. And these taxes are often in place at the county wide level. But more and more municipalities, as we go on, are adopting them.
So the city of Auburn council last night unanimously going on record just to simply start the process again for 2025. We'll send the word up to our state representatives that we're looking. We would really like their cooperation to do this again. And the attempt would be to try to get the bill introduced in both the Senate and the Assembly and voted on by the end of session this year. And hopefully the governor would sign it.
Now, the governor in the last few years, both Governor Cuomo a few years ago and now Governor Hochul the last couple of years that she's been the governor, they have signed these home rule request bills for the establishment of occupancy taxes. Pretty much I think they've signed just about every one of them that's made it through Albany. And it's a great new source of revenue. I know that over in Syracuse, I happened to run into the Syracuse city auditor a couple of months ago, and he was really very happy with the fact that the Syracuse bed tax bill had passed and made its way all the way to getting approved by the governor. Looking forward to the revenue that that bill will collect.
And it's really an attempt to offset the burden of that's placed on the local property taxpayer. And as short term rentals become more and more prominent here in the city of Auburn, we've seen an increase in the Airbnb style, VRBO style short term rentals. These would be included as well. So more to come on this. We will hear more about it. But the council last night unanimously making the decision to communicate to the state that we're still interested. Nothing has changed on our end, and we will do the work of trying to convince our people at the at the state level up in Albany that we really need this in Auburn.
Chuck Mason: We have Assemblyman Lamontes coming on next week, so I'll ask him about it. But in the interim, will the mayor or a delegation and or a delegation from the city try to sit down with the assemblyman and see where the differences are?
Paul Szmal: Yes, we definitely will be. And it's really more the matter of this is a home rule request unanimously approved by the council here. And it's really, you know, the merits of what people think about tax one way or another are. That's part of the equation. But the more important part of the equation that we see is that the you know, some of these things require the approval of the state legislature. And you have to do that through home rule request. Our hands are tied. You know, it's and it becomes an equity thing.
Why can the municipality literally we are in a situation where the municipality directly to the north of us in Weedsport, directly to the east of us in skinny Alice and directly to the south of us in Ithaca all have their own municipal home home rule requested occupancy taxes. And here in Auburn, we're not allowed to do it. So it's it becomes an equity thing. And as more and more municipalities have stepped up to do it, it's really going to be time for the state to maybe even just take a look at allowing municipalities to do it anyways.
The governor has taken a step this year with implementing the tax on the short term rentals across the state. I believe that takes effect come April 1st. She signed that short term rental legislation into law, and I believe it takes effect this spring. So it's really there's a really a lot to be discussed here. It's it's more it goes. I think it's a bigger discussion. And Mayor Genetino and and the council will be lobbying everybody at the state, including the assemblyman.
Chuck Mason: Talking with Auburn City Clerk Chuck Mason, the Christmas tree recycling program is back. It's a cooperation between the county Department of Planning and Economic Development, Keuka County Soil and Water Conservation District and Cooperative Extension. A few more days left to recycle your tree.
That's right. It's a great program. And you can get yourself a free coupon for a tree that'll be handed out this spring at the county soil and water conservation district spring tree and shrub sale, which is always held in the month of May. But it looks like today you can still drop your tree off and the trees can be dropped off out of the county house road in Auburn. And it's a great way to recycle your tree. And then next week, Monday through Friday and the following week, Monday through Friday, so January 6th through 10th and then January 13th through 17th, you can bring your trees out.
Now, very important. The tree needs to be undecorated, so you need to take all that tinsel and all the decorations and lights and stuff off of your real Christmas tree. And they'll take it out to the county house road at the conservation center out there, and they will chip it and turn it into mulch. And they'll provide you with a coupon to pick up a tree seedling for yourself at the May 9th conservation district spring tree and shrub sale. So it's a great program.
If you are a city of Auburn resident and you put your tree to the curb, the city will be out collecting trees over the next couple of weeks. There really isn't a set schedule for when we do this. It's just that as the city crews get some time over the next couple of weeks, we'll be out there collecting Christmas trees. But it'll depend on the snowfall and how much snow plowing we have to do and things like that.
But take advantage if you're if you've got the ability to get throw your tree back on the roof of the car and take it out to County House Road. It's a great program to help basically recycle your your live tree and get a tree seedling for the spring. That information is on the city website at AuburnNY.gov.
Also, the firefighter civil service exam is coming up. Sign up deadlines the end of this month.
Paul Szmal: That's right. And trying to spread the word, a great opportunity for somebody that's looking for a career in firefighting. The next city of Auburn firefighter exam is scheduled for March 1st, 2025. That's the exam date. The application to take the exam deadline is January 30th, 2025. So you've basically got the month of January here to look into the matter and get your application filed and get out all the paperwork required to be ready for the March 1st test.
So this is a. The city of Auburn Fire Department will be doing a lot this month to try to spread the word and recruit people interested in this. Everything is all the information that you need to know is on the city of Auburn's website and on the fire department pages website. Lots of good information there for people to take a look at if you're interested. And the deadline, as I said, is January 30th, 2025.
So anybody out there that's looking for a career in firefighting the Auburn Fire Department is a great place to to spend a career serving the people of Auburn. And they do a great job down there. And it's a great it'll be a great opportunity for people. And I'm just noticing here, Ted, that. I misspelled the word exam, how can you do that? I'm looking at the city website and I see I put two A's in the word exam. So I have to jump on and jump on and fix that as we're speaking here. But a great opportunity for people that are interested in a having a career in the in the firefighting.
Chuck Mason: Yeah. Paid pretty good money to Chuck Basin, the Auburn city clerk. Our guest each Friday at this time. We appreciate it as always.
Paul Szmal: Thanks, Ted. Thank you. Have a great weekend, everybody. Happy New Year.
