The city of Auburn could be without overnight police protection if the stiffest of requested budget cuts is enacted, according to the city’s police chief.
Matthew Androsko briefed members of the Auburn City Council on how he would enact a cut to the police department budget of about 14% at a standing-room-only meeting Thursday evening packed with supporters of the police agency.
Androsko said he initially prepared a budget that contained only mission-critical items, amounting to about a 3% cut, as the city began to confront a potential $5 million budget gap for the upcoming fiscal year. Then, he was asked to prepare budgets that would cut an additional 8% and 11%. Under the 11% cut, Androsko said he would have to eliminate eight of 74 patrol positions, focusing on overnight positions as they are paid more for working the less desirable hours in order to minimize the number of positions to cut. That would leave too few officers for overnight patrols, when a single call can require at least two officers and sometimes more.
“The police department would be closed down?” asked Council member Rhoda Overstreet-Wilson. “That’s correct,” said Androsko, who noted that the Cayuga County Sheriff’s Department has told them they would not be able to answer calls in the city overnight, leaving any assistance to the New York State Police, which covers a much larger region and would likely be much slower to respond to calls for help.
The cuts would also force the closing of the Finger Lakes Drug Task Force, cut most school crossing guards and end the department’s participation in community events. In all, the 8% and 11% cuts would eliminate between 24% and 28% of the police department’s full and part-time workforce, Androsko said.
He warned that any cuts in patrol strength will lead to increased crime, at a time when crime in Auburn has fallen 35%.
“We don’t want this,” he said. “We have a violent crime issue here in the city of Auburn, whether we want to admit it or not,” said Deputy Chief Timothy Spingler.
Police officers and their families are being made to pay for years of financial malpractice, said Michael Bufano, head of the police department’s union.
“What we’re facing is not a responsible budgeting error, it’s not a budgeting problem, it’s not reform and it’s certainly not leadership. What it is is the dismantling of the police department to cover up years of financial mismanagement,” he said.
“We have no option but to make hard choices,” said Mayor James Giannettino, who said that city leadership has shown its support for the department over the years. Councilor Craig Diego, in his first year on the council, repeated his earlier belief that some city services are more important than others and that cutbacks cannot be across-the-board as a result.
Giannettino said the city is facing large and unexpected increases in mandatory areas such as retirement payments, energy costs, worker’s compensation and health insurance, while state aid to small cities hasn’t increased in nearly two decades. He added that the city is continuing to crawl its way out from the damaging economic effects of the pandemic.
No decisions were made at Thursday night’s meeting, which was the latest in a string of budget workshop sessions.
