Common Council hearings revealed finance worries weeks before cuts

ALBANY — Weeks before Mayor Dorcey Applyrs publicly acknowledged a $37 million fiscal crisis, city officials received salary increases and new administrative positions were created.

Questions raised during a Common Common debate on those expenditures — which were all ultimately approved — show that the mayor’s staff and several members of the Council were aware of the precarious state of the city’s finances well before the mayor announced wide-ranging austerity measures and the potential for cuts to city services last week. 

The hiring and salary decisions do not represent a significant chunk of the shortfall Applyrs announced last week, which amounts to a $15 million deficit for 2025 and a projected $22 million shortfall in 2026. 

According to the adopted budget, the mayor’s office is currently operating under budget by 21%, her office said in a statement Wednesday, adding “all decisions on salary and hiring were made prior to having a clear picture on our current deficit situation under the mayor’s administration.”

City lawmakers raised concerns about the new jobs and fiscal worries just weeks after the mayor’s Jan. 1 inauguration.

“This could just look like we’re creating roles at the top,” Common Council member Deirdre Brodie said at a Jan. 29 Finance, Taxation and Assessment Committee meeting. “When we should be tightening our belts.”

Her comment was specifically in reference to a request — since granted — that split the Department of Recreation, Youth and Workforce Services into two separate bodies with two commissioners drawing six-figure salaries, though it was also true of several other personnel matters that came before the committee that evening.

In that meeting, city lawmakers weighed and ultimately approved a request by Applyrs to increase the salaries of Deputy Mayor Christopher Ellis and Deputy Administrative Services Commissioner Kendell Demby. While questioning Applyrs’ Policy Director John Reilly Jr. and Administrative Services Commissioner Miriam Dixon, it was obvious to committee Chair Meghan Keegan, member Alfedo Balarin and Brodie that significant cuts to the city budget were likely inevitable.

Brodie alluded to a comment from a member of the public earlier in the hearing while expressing her skepticism about the requests. “We’re nitpicking on little old ladies and their tax exemptions (while) the leader of our institution is setting a precedent by asking for 20% raises when we’re not even out of the first month of the administration in a year when we should be looking for cuts,” she said. “And I’m very confident we’re going to have to be looking for cuts at minimum in the (fiscal year 2027) budget.”

Balarin said he supported the mayor having her preferred team in place as her administration began, while acknowledging that cuts were virtually guaranteed. “If we’re in October and we’re finding that the most painful cuts are being done for those at the lower level of our salary rates, that will have some significant pushback from myself,” he said. “If there’s going to be pain, it should be shared pain.”

In arguing for Ellis’s raise, Reilly said there was a “critical need” for Ellis to fill the role at the mayor’s requested salary in order for him to make “tough decisions” this year.

“We talked tonight about some of the challenges the city will be facing and we look forward to working with Mr. Ellis as the city navigates those difficult decisions,” Reilly said.

Applyrs sought to increase Ellis’s salary from the budgeted amount of $133,600 to $162,930. The latter figure was the salary Ellis had been offered when he was recruited for the job, even though the Common Council had not yet approved the increase. It also emerged during the hearing that Ellis had spent the first month of the new administration working without being on the city’s payroll. 

Applyrs’ Wednesday statement noted that under Mayor Kathy Sheehan’s administration, “salaries in the proposed budget were changed from a set number for each position, to a range. The deputy mayor’s salary is within that range. The mayor did not seek an increase above the budgeted range.”

When asked about Ellis working for the city despite not yet being formally hired, the mayor’s office said: “The deputy mayor position is an important role and during the administration’s transition, the deputy mayor was getting up to speed on the position in January. This is standard for starting any new role.”

Last week, Applyrs said Ellis would be leading a city-wide effort to cut costs across every municipal department. It is unclear how drastic the cuts may be and what city services may be reduced, though department heads and commissioners have been instructed to prepare budget reduction plans of 7%, 10% and 15%.

City leaders have been effusive in their praise of the Department of Recreation, Youth and Workforce Services under the leadership of Commissioner Jonathan P. Jones and the work done by the Rev. Jahmel Robinson, who headed the department’s recreation wing. At the finance hearing, they were less enthused about Applyrs’ move to split the department in two and the costs that it would incur.

The mayor’s office initially sought to pull $85,000 in contingency funds to pay Robinson’s proposed $120,000 per year salary, a move Brodie described as “blatantly irresponsible” for a recurring expense. That plan was ultimately scrapped, and the funds were instead appropriated with $75,000 from an unfilled position in the city’s Corporation Counsel’s office, which meant that the city spent tens of thousands of dollars it could have saved.

“As we’re pre-emptively thinking about cuts and what we need to do to balance the budget, it seems like we’re creating more roles at the highest level of salary without having had any urgent or problematic reason to do so, especially considering the success of the department,” Brodie said.

Keegan, the finance chair, questioned why the split and the salary issues were not resolved during discussions Applyrs had with Sheehan about the incoming mayor’s priorities in the 2026 budget, which was drafted by Sheehan’s office and passed last year by the council.

“My concern is why the request wasn’t made during that process to indicate that she was planning to split these departments apart or why, if the request wasn’t granted because it didn’t allow for us to necessarily have a balanced budget, why this isn’t a plan for fiscal year 2027 when she has the opportunity to develop her budget for the first time,” Keegan said. “And I don’t think it’s unfair for anybody on this side of the aisle to ask those questions.”

City Auditor Sam Fein asked the finance committee to approve funds to hire a chief of staff, a position that did not previously exist, for his six-person office. That person, Anton Konev, began working in the Office of Audit and Control on Monday at a yearly salary of $116,000.

The decision was technically budget-neutral as it was paid for by shifting funds from other positions and services in the office. In an interview Wednesday, Fein said that, as currently constituted, his office was coming in at $13,000 under its budget, though he admitted that there would have been additional savings if the chief of staff position had not been created.

Finance Committee members were skeptical about his request, though it was ultimately passed and approved by the full Council. Fein told the committee he was aware that other positions would go unfilled in next year’s budget because of financial constraints.

To which Keegan replied: “We’re not going to magically find money for you to add staffing going forward. If anything, we’re going to be constricting staffing across all city departments, including our own Council department in order to make things work.”