To the Editor:

The results of the 2020 City Financial Audit is verifiable proof positive that the bold decisions by the Majority City Council are achieving the desired results. If you are a resident of the city, you should rest a little easier knowing that the city will survive and is well on its way to a grand revival.

Please look closely at these key highlights from the 2020 Financial Audit:

An internally generated surplus of $1.46M in the 2020 General Operating Budget

A 57% increase in the city’s operational “Fund Balance” from $2.57M to $4.03M

A 31% reduction in the city’s operational “Debt Balance” from $7.60M to $5.25M

A 23% reduction in the city’s personnel strength from 131 full-time to 101 full-time (2021 budget)

The improvements from just one year ago are unbelievable to most that live in Ogdensburg, as they heard for so many years that change was not possible, increased property taxes are inevitable and any reduction in funds for public safety programs would result in serious consequences. As it turns out, none of that is true. Now you won’t hear any less rhetoric from some former city employees that will never admit less was actually possible and now they are appearing a bit discredited (while actively trying to discredit those actually making real change).

You will hear former city councilors (and at least one sitting councilor) professing that soon all will be lost to fires and people are dying (or may die, he is not sure which it is) and most recently that same sitting city councilor falsely claimed that no fire response since reductions to the fire department have resulted in successful outcomes. As it turns out, none of that is true. Ogdensburg Fire Department is doing a great job, and the new cadre of line officers are meeting the challenges presented with a clear understanding of the fiscal circumstances the city is facing.

Response to fires is now much more cost effective and since the implementation of actively using mutual aid, we have many more firefighters responding to structural fires than ever before – thank you very much to our neighbors in Heuvelton, Morristown and Lisbon. For the record – the Ogdensburg Fire Department has a daily minimum staffing of 4 at present, and prior to the reductions it had a daily minimum staffing of 5. Of course 5 would be better, but 4 is highly efficient and the reduction of 10 personnel overall by the end of 2021 will result in a savings of over $1.4M annually. The city’s entire general fund operational revenue for 2021 was approximately $14M. $1.4M is a 10% savings just from reductions in one program and it is money that is desperately needed to reduce property taxes and invest in the future of Ogdensburg. Nobody wants less firefighters (or police officers) but the city cannot continue sacrificing all other departments and programs to maintain public safety staffing at levels that are not affordable in the current fiscal environment.

In the fall of 2016 the new city manager, Sarah Purdy, wrote “Continuing at the current levels of services is unsustainable”. Further she wrote “The proposed 2017 budget meets this expectation (of the NYS Comptroller’s Office) by reassigning police and fire pension costs from the Water, Sewer, and Library-Remington Funds to the Police and Fire accounts in the general fund, and more accurately allocating the Department of Public Works operating costs so that only those costs associated with water are in the Water Fund and only those costs associated with sewer operations are in the Sewer Fund.” Previous city councils and city managers were using water and sewer funds to pay fire and police pensions because the city was not taking in enough money in the general fund to pay for them – hence, why the city will now have to borrow over $30M to pay for upgrades to the Wastewater Treatment Plant.

In the fall of 2017 City Manager Sarah Purdy wrote “Ogdensburg is at a point now where a collective understanding is needed that, in order to avoid large property tax increases, services have to be altered. When you read the budget for 2017, you quickly notice some personnel reductions were made, but nothing of the magnitude required to stem the rising tide of debt. Further that year Ms. Purdy wrote “This practice of having the Water Fund subsidize the General Fund is frowned upon by Moody’s and is one of the factors that caused the downgrade (to junk bond status) this year in the City’s bond rating.” There really is no excuse for this bad practice other than leadership failed to act responsibly and allowed the city to raid the water and sewer funds to pay for things it could not afford; the results are now painfully manifesting in excessive debt being taken on to repair and replace the city’s wastewater treatment plant, and likely an additional $15-$20M in the near future for the Water Treatment Plant.

In the fall of 2018 in writing about the budget for the Library, City Manager Sarah Purdy wrote “Especially since the library now received property tax revenue directly from Ogdensburg property owners, it seems questionable for the City to allocate more money to the Library and either cut its own needs or increase the City Property Tax to these same property owners in order to fund the city’s needs. In essence, to do other than establish a City allocation that requires the Library to use its additional property tax revenue is to tax Ogdensburg property owners twice for the same purpose.” 2022 will be the first year that the Library funds themselves entirely with funds they received through a tax levy, and that would not have occurred without the leadership of this Majority City Council. Ms. Purdy knew that to be the right thing to do, and now it is done.

In the fall of 2019 City Manager Sarah Purdy wrote “For the first time in four years, the proposed budget (2020) includes the use of the General Fund Balance, in the amount of $136,000, to help fund proposed expenses in the General Fund. The fund balance at the end of 2018 was reported at $1.1M, so why not use a little bit to make ends meet? The answer: We now know that the fund balance was overstated in 2018 by over $1M due to the failure to write down money that was never coming from debt accumulated from the failed cheese plant operation. $1M was never coming to the city. So factually – the fund balance for 2018 was likely $1M at best – far below the recommended amount of $2.5M that it should possess. The fund balance for 2019 that is reported as $2.5M is accurate and represents a healthy balance but it should have been reserved for emergencies, again not to replace or differ hard, and unpopular decisions that would please union members and leave the city once again in a financially vulnerable position.

So just when the city was arriving at a healthy fund balance, city leadership was already planning to use those funds to balance the budget, but that was all planned on October 18, 2019, just three weeks from the 2019 City Elections.

On that date Ms. Purdy wrote “The recent settlement of collective bargaining agreements with the two CSEA Unions is incorporated into the proposed budget, but any funding for 2020 wage increases for the Police and Fire Departments does not appear in those departmental budgets because settlements have not been reached.” There is no denying what occurred after the 2019 elections – the city settled all three of those contracts and they all cost the city MORE money for that year and much more than $136,000 was going to be taken from the fund balance had the 2020 Majority City Council not acted to bring expenses in-line with revenues. As factually reported, the decision by the 2020 Majority City Council converted a likely withdraw of $250,000+ from the fund balance to a $1.4M surplus added to the fund balance – not a bad start to saving a city.

Disinformation? Nothing above and nothing in previous reports is disinformation, it is all fact, supported by files of documents, the NYS Comptroller’s Office and the NYS Financial Restructuring Board. Verifiable factual information is all you will get from the Skelly Administration and your City Staff and any information to the contrary is just fictional writing and a weak attempt to cover up years of mismanagement, selfish entitlement and irresponsible union contract ratification that is now out in the open and it is really making some groups and individuals that personally benefited from the city’s demise very uncomfortable.

The City of Ogdensburg survived the financial crisis that loomed large just a short time ago, but we cannot allow the same excessive spending habits to overtake the progress being made to secure the future. Promising to increase police and fire staffing, with no plan for how to pay for it, is just empty talk from experienced amateurs placating unions and attempting to garner attention for political gain. Denying that continued property tax cuts are needed is just failure to accept reality that most people in Ogdensburg, other than governmental employees, cannot afford to pay more. Claiming that people will die or their homes will burn is fear mongering at its worst and should not be condoned or accepted.

Since taking office in January 2020, the goal of the Majority of City Council was to insure the survival of the city while working equally as hard to accelerate the revival of the city – that goal is being realized everyday and the progress is obvious and verifiable.

Stephen P. Jellie
City Manager/Fire Chief
City of Ogdensburg