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Civil service office requests $11,200 amendment to 2026 budget for staffing, medical exams and training
Summary
Carissa, the civil service coordinator, asked the council to restore several lines cut in the comp budget — including medical exams, postage, office supplies, part-time clerk hours and training — totaling an $11,200 amendment request and said the comp budget is smaller than the 2025 approved amount.
Carissa, the civil service coordinator, asked the council to amend the 2026 comprehensive budget to restore funding reduced in the comp budget and to cover likely personnel-related costs. She described the office as understaffed and said several lines in the comp budget would not meet projected needs for 2026.
Carissa asked for a modest increase to the part-time senior-clerk line — from a $20,000 comp figure toward the originally requested amount to ensure a minimum 20-hour-a-week schedule and coverage for Saturday exams — and said she was requesting an additional $4,000 for that line. She also asked that the office-supplies allocation be raised from the comp budget’s $500 to $1,000 and postage be raised by $200 to $700, citing year-to-date expenditures.
A central item in Carissa’s amendment was the medical-exam line for required prehire psychological and physical exams for police, firefighters and dispatchers. The 2026 comp budget included $5,000 for medical exams; Carissa requested restoring the originally requested $10,000 to ensure coverage if the anticipated hires and backfills proceed and to avoid midyear transfer requests. She said combined anticipated hiring for police and fire could require funds for roughly 11 prehire examinations and that an occupational-medicine referral or specialist follow-up could raise costs per candidate above baseline exam estimates.
Carissa also asked that the department be allowed $1,500 to attend the state civil-service training in 2026; the comp budget included no training funds. She described the total amendment request as $11,200. Carissa noted that the civil service office receives an annual reimbursement from the Saratoga Springs School District based on employee counts, which offsets a portion of its operating budget.
Commissioner Cole and other council members discussed retirements and the timing of backfills. A city official said three police officers had submitted retirement paperwork with finalization expected by the end of the year, which could accelerate the need for exam and hiring funding.
Carissa closed by saying she had tried to be conservative in her requests and that the amendment would restore modest, predictable funding to avoid repeated transfers during the year.
