Fiscal Responsibility and Sustainability
City of Poughkeepsie has been known to be fiscally stressed in the last few years. The city is improving its financial status and reducing its deficit but we have a lot more work to do, to ensure we stay on the fiscal improvement we need to sustain essential services, make necessary improvements and strategically achieve our long-term goals without placing burden on our taxpayers.
As the current 5th Ward Council member and member on the Finance Committee, we worked diligently with City Administration to stay below the 2% tax cap, avoid layoffs especially during the pandemic, and maintain essential services. The American Rescue Plan Federal Funding of about 20 million dollars gave the city the leverage it needed to make necessary improvements, recover loss revenue resulted from the pandemic and provide additional services in 2022 & 2023. For example, close to 3.8 million dollars were allocated to upgrade our pools and park improvements and about 1.2 million were allocated to organizations for youth programs and services. The ARPA funds helped provide additional services and improvements without burdening the General fund or increasing the city’s debt service.
As Mayor, my administration will be more diligent in seeking federal, state and local grants to help leverage our city budget and provide additional funding needed to assist with capital improvements, technology upgrades, additional support services for families, including our seniors, businesses, and improvements to our water and sewer piping, etc. My administration will also seek additional revenue sources that will help relieve the burden on our taxpayers and carefully monitor expenses to ensure we our spending wisely.
We will diligently work on a strategic plan to help build the city’s fund balance which will help improve our credit rating for future borrowing and also give the city the leverage it needs for those unexpected mandated costs.