Revamped DPW budget vexes city officials
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Complaints and concerns about Dunkirk Mayor Kate Wdowiasz's proposed 2027 budget filled a Common Council DPW Committee meeting this week.
The meeting came just hours after the council opened its budget talks by meeting with DPW officials. Committee chair Natalie Luczkowiak made it clear she wanted to continue chatting about the budget proposal.
Some eye-popping numbers in the plan garnered the most attention. The budget proposal claims that DPW salaries will go up 688%. A repair and maintenance line is up 5,680%, while contracted services soar by 65,970%.
Dunkirk Comptroller Tracy Smith-Dengler, who wasn't at the meetings, consolidated and revamped the city budget's structure this year. She has pointed out that might result in some strange-looking budget lines for 2027 -- but DPW Committee attendees weren't particularly impressed by that line.
"When we are focusing on looking at the budget, they really need to put (items) back into different divisions," Luczkowiak said. For example, while DPW salaries were scattered around the previous budget, at least individual pay rates could be deciphered. Now, all salaries appear to be lumped into one budget line.
Woodbury pointed out that past city budgets demanded a lot of jumping around to figure things out. However, he feels the current proposal goes too far the other way -- it omits crucial data. "We need something halfway in between" for the budget, he said.
One big jump in a DPW line did get explained. The City Hall repair and maintenance fund is up to $500,000, after $75,000 was budgeted this year. The city has blown past that, spending $117,844 so far.
DPW Deputy Director Mike Przybycien said a lot of the rise can be explained by a planned installation of a new backup electric generator. The city bought the generator two years ago, but never installed it, he said.
City Hall also needs brick pointing, roof work, and painting, Przybycien added.
Earlier, Luczkowiak mentioned a 5% decrease in the revenue line for a landfill user fee. DPW Director Randy Woodbury said that represents the city tipping fee for collecting garbage.
That budget line has $1,038,000 expected for this year but only $680,631 has been collected so far, according to Wdowasiz's budget proposal. The proposal envisions $985,000 for 2027.
Woodbury commented that he and Przybycien think the amount of water and sewer gallons they treat is not accurately tied to billing. They think it is a computer software problem, and hope the city's looming transition to the GovSense system will alleviate that.
"We really need to capture all the revenue we can. Hopefully GovSense will help with that," Luczkowiak said.
City departments are supposed to transition to GovSense on Nov. 4. Training in the system is ongoing. City officials initially hoped the software would be ready back in the spring, but various and numerous issues have delayed the rollout for months.