Saratoga News

City government gets fresh start with a new fiscal year

By Sarah Lombardo

With the budget passed last week, Saratogans may begin feeling the effect of their newly reorganized government. City officials have kept late hours during the past few weeks, working almost around the clock to finish closing out the last fiscal year and prepare the city to work within its new, tighter budget.

"We're down to the wire," Irene Jacobs, an administrative assistant for the city, said late last week.

Layoff notices were sent to city employees whose jobs had been eliminated or reclassified, and city management staffers conducted interviews for some new positions as late as Monday morning. The new fiscal year began Tuesday.

"It's really kind of unfortunate because for the people who lose their jobs, they won't find out until the day before that they have to leave," city codes administrator Joe Oncay said.

Oncay is one of the employees whose job has been reclassified.

Oncay said the atmosphere at City Hall in the past week has been strained.

"The morale with the employees around here is very poor and very tense," he said. "I think even tense would be an understatement."

Jacobs, whose position in the city manager's office has also been changed, said the experience has been odd for her.

"It was kind of bizarre. I had to set up interviews and lay myself off," she said. But Jacobs said it was her impression that city staffers felt relieved, almost excited, that the changes talked about for months at city budget meetings were finally being implemented.

Some staffers have already moved-- to different cities. Jacobs said many employees started looking for new jobs when the layoffs of almost seven city employees were initially proposed.

"The numbers will probably look lower because people have left of their own accord," Jacobs said.

City staffers will not be the only ones immediately affected by the start of the new fiscal year. Some of the effects of the scaled-down government and budget are already obvious to some residents. Anyone who visits the Building and Engineering or Planning Department this week will see the sign on the door announcing that counter hours have been cut in half to 8 a.m. to noon, Monday through Friday. Parents planning to register their children for fall Recreation Department classes will have to keep in mind the 10 percent increase in fees scheduled to go into effect. And residents needing buildings inspected may have to wait longer before getting an appointment.

The City Council approved the budget after six months of budget workshops and town hall meetings with residents. The approval marked the end of the city's arduous task of cutting its budget in response to the defeat of the utilty-user's tax last November.

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