Of all the various items in a city budget—from personnel and medical insurance to sidewalk replacement, facilities upkeep, and community celebrations—one department, in particular, weighed heavy on the mind of City Council President Eugene Jankowski Jr. Monday evening.
That was the police department and its representation of all law enforcement. Jankowski, a retired city police lieutenant, knew Sgt. Thomas Sanfratello, who died in the line of duty this past weekend during a scuffle with someone he was attempting to apprehend at Batavia Downs.
“I worked with him. He was a dispatcher for us in the very beginning, and then he ended up working over at the sheriff's department and working his way to Sergeant. And I ran into him at a meeting just a couple of weeks ago, and I asked him if he had retired yet, and he said, no, he hadn't done that, he was looking forward to it in a couple of years. And unfortunately, he didn't get a chance. It upset me a lot when I found out the news of his passing,” Jankowski said after the meeting at City Hall. “I feel strongly about our public safety, and our fire department and our streets being cleared. Those are our core value services. And in our budget, basically, those are the three items we fund first. And then after that, if we have anything left over extra, then we start looking at additional items, like maybe modifications to a recreational area or a park or something like that.
"But we have parking lots that are in need. We have streets that are in need. We have sidewalks that are in need. So those are our priority," he said. "But public safety, in my mind, is my number one priority. That's why I pay taxes. I want my police, I want my fire, I want my DPW. I want the streets kept clean, and I want them safe. So that's just important to me. And a lot of people I talked to feel the same way.”
Before council's business meeting, Jankowski asked for a few moments of silence in memory of Sanfratello and former officer Edward LaValley, who died March 1 at Crossroads House.
During the meeting and before the council’s vote to adopt the proposed 2024-25 budget, Jankowski issued a reminder for people to “remember what happened this weekend” when the council resumes talks about the police department and a recommendation to hire more officers. He may not be in favor of doing multiple hirings at once, versus one per year perhaps, but would like to ensure that the city’s department is equipped to provide adequate public safety, he said.
Jankowski’s response followed Councilman-at-Large Bob Bialkowski’s lone rebuttal to and disappointment in the budget.
“I’m just a little disappointed in the process, and everything was approved in its entirety. I certainly heard from many, many people dissatisfied with the situation,” Bialkowski said. “One of the things I’m really very dissatisfied with, at a recent meeting, one of our council members concocted a whole story, things that I supposedly voted for during an Audit Committee meeting, which we were discussing the 2020 budget and compliance for the audit, which was very good, which I don’t appreciate that sort of thing. We don't all get along all the time. There's no reason to be attacking other council members.
“But some of the factors we could have considered—maybe we shouldn't hire so many employees at one time or buy so many new vehicles—” he said. The VLT money was never entered into it. I just feel that we could have done things differently.”
In turn, Jankowski said quite the opposite.
“I have had numerous people come up to me in person telling me that council is doing a great job, so I guess we can’t please everybody. But they don’t call me. I have no way of knowing that. The assessments didn’t happen this year because you, Mr. Bialkowski, were one of the advocates for giving our taxpayers a break. And I went along with you on that. But now that I look at it, I think when we interfere with that state process, I think we should probably let it go its normal course and stay out of that. It’s not really our process to get involved with. Let it go on as the state requires them to work. This is my own personal opinion,” he said. “And let me be straight. No one was glad we raised taxes. But they’re glad with the general direction and upkeep of the services we presently have, and the construction and the finally putting to bed the police station project, and getting that over the finish line. And things like that are what they’re pleased with.
“I wish we could keep it zero tax increase as well. This year, it just wasn’t possible to do without cutting essential services. And as we saw in the news recently, we’ve had two attacks on our police officers, violent ones, one resulting in a really bad situation recently," he said. "So I would never lay off police officers or firemen or DPW people. They’re essential for our public safety.”
He then pointed to a state criminal justice report that assessed the city police department and recommended that the city hire five more patrol officers, and said, “so if anything, remember what happened this past weekend.”
“The next budget when we start talking about we might want to hire more police officers, remember what happened this weekend,” he said.
To clarify, the weekend event happened at Batavia Downs, which is in the town of Batavia and under the jurisdiction of Genesee County Sheriff’s Office, not the Batavia Police Department.
The front portion of Batavia Downs along Park Road is in the town of Batavia, but the majority of the complex, according to Jankowski, is in the city, so it is under the jurisdiction of Batavia city police.
By a vote of eight to one, council approved the budget of $37,061,280 million, with a tax levy increase of $110,000 from this year for a total of $6.7 million. Members Derek Geib, Rich Richmond, Al McGinnis, Kathy Briggs, Tammy Schmidt, Paul Viele, David Twichell, and Jankowski voted yes to Bialkowski’s no vote.
Richmond stuck to his initial stance that Bialkowski had the opportunity to voice concerns during the Audit Committee meetings and instead said all was fine and made no changes. Richmond said he believed “this was a reasonable budget” and was willing to stand up and say so. He challenged Bialkowski to do the same and suggested cuts to make if he didn’t want to see a tax increase. "Being offended isn’t a virtue,” he said.
When asked after the meeting about making cuts, Bialkowski told The Batavian that it wasn’t his job to do so. There’s a city staff in place to do that, he said.
The proposed property tax levy of $6,710,000 will increase by $110,000 and mean a property tax rate of $8.96 per $1,000 assessed value, or two cents per $1,000 assessed value, or $2 extra per year on a home assessed at $100,000.
Council also approved, in a much less controversial fashion, a 19-cent increase in the city's water rate to $6.46 per 1,000 gallons and $8.16 in the town, along with increases of $2 per quarter for the water meter and $6 per quarter for the capital infrastructure fund. That vote was unanimous.
All tallied, with an estimated $3.80 more per quarter for the water itself, plus the meter and capital fund increases, that estimated increase is to be about $47 more per year for a family of four, city management said.
Of course, the total yearly increase depends on how much water a household consumes. Sewer fees are not increased, and a proposed stormwater tax that was discussed during budget sessions is not part of this budget.
The total budget includes:
- $690,000 for general fund reserves, $45,717 for City Council, $147,638 for city manager, $230,167 for legal services
- $6,000 for community development, $113,300 for economic development, $5,000 for GO Art!, $13,5000 for community celebrations
- $85,288 for Youth Bureau summer recreation, $107,260 for Department of Public Works, $289,316 for city facilities, $20,500 for the ice rink, $43,500 for Dwyer Stadium
- $461,00 for inspection, $173,205 for Public Works Bureau of Maintenance administration, $533,974 for street maintenance, $1,009,754 for CHIPS permanent improvement highway
- $523,494 public works garage, $465,890 for snow removal, $107,791 for street lighting traffic signals, $300,000 for sidewalks, $278,510 for parking lots
- $605,747 for parks, $129,593 for street cleaning, $6,283 for historic preservation, $122,201 for refuse and recycling,
- $4,768,850 for police, $39,336 for the emergency response team, $221,579 for the police Neighborhood Enforcement Team (NET), $18,147 for community policing and events, $950 for the K-9 unit, $4,700,470 for the fire department
- $11,292,301 for water, wastewater and worker’s comp funds, $567,138 for City Centre, $3,443,968 for medical insurance.
