Saratoga Springs officials eye paid-parking changes, transfer tax and fees to bolster DPW as costs surge

At an Oct. budget workshop, Saratoga Springs City officials said rapidly rising personnel and contract costs are squeezing the Department of Public Works budget and proposed extending paid parking, establishing a property transfer tax to seed a community preservation fund, and charging for electric vehicle (EV) charging to generate revenue for DPW.

Meeting chair said the city has seen sharp increases in employee benefits and equipment costs, noting “health insurance have gone up about 26%. Retirement has gone up 89%, liability insurance has gone up 188%.” The chair added that a vehicle example illustrates broad price inflation: an ambulance that cost about $180,000 when ordered in 2019 now costs about $587,000.

Those increases are complicating a budget where salaries and benefits make up the bulk of DPW-related spending. The chair said DPW and DPW-recreation combined appear as a 13.17 figure in the comp budget, with roughly $1,900,000 for health insurance, $850,000 for retirement and about $6,300,000 for salaries, or roughly $9.2 million of those lines.

Mike Reach, Public Works, told the council the city’s expenses have risen across recent…