Troy city council concerned with 2025 fiscal budget as public hearings end

TROY, N.Y. (NEWS10) -- Tuesday was the final public hearing for the City of Troy’s 2025 fiscal budget. City leadership shares their concerns on where the budget will land. “First and foremost, a budget needs to be more than a hopes and wishes document,” said Troy City Council President, Sue Steele.

NEWS10’s Reporter, James De La Fuente, had an interview scheduled with Troy Mayor, Carmella Mantello but she was unable to meet up and sent the following statement, “After delivering an on-time budget, providing nearly 20 hours of public testimony and meetings, and practically a line-by-line review.”

But Steele says she is concerned about the city’s lack of a comptroller and unfulfilled promises to fill the position. “It's in the budget at $105,000. The council, however, realizing that perhaps the budgets are, the budgeted salary is too low, [the council] authorized a salary range beyond that. Well, here we are, the end of 2024. We don't have a controller yet.”

More concerning to the council president, the cost of doing business without a comptroller. “We spent $320,000 for consultants to just get our numbers together so that we could file an end of year report,” stated Steele.

“Are we going to have to budget for another $320,000 for next year? That's not in the budget.” President Steele says transparency is key and is concerned about where funding is coming from saying, “I mean, are they going to take it out of contingency? Which there again, the mayor didn't budget anything for 911 services. [The mayor] said it was going to come out of contingency.”

Steele says the math does not add up. “We have spent a lot of time going over the budget. It would take a major overhaul to amend it and get it back into sync. And then again, what would it be based on? What numbers do we have to base it?”

Mantello says she has faith in the city’s ability to produce a balanced budget saying the statements made by the minority of the city council are misleading. “The minority failed to propose even one amendment. Instead, they offer empty political rhetoric.”

The council will vote on the final budget December 2.