Council hears departments’ priorities as city begins 2026 budget planning; staffing and equipment requests highlighted

Geneva City Council received an overview of departmental planning as the city begins the 2026 budget process, with department heads summarizing priorities, unfunded requests from 2025 and proposed work programs and capital needs for the next one to five years.

The City Manager opened the presentation by describing the process and schedule: department presentations to Council now; a budget-setting meeting in May to establish parameters; department work with the City Manager and Comptroller through summer; the City Manager’s formal budget delivery on Sept. 9; public hearings in late September; and adoption by Oct. 31. The City Manager emphasized that tonight’s session was informational and not a presentation of final budget numbers.

Department highlights in the meeting record included:

- City Manager’s office: 1.1 full-time equivalent (FTE) currently; priorities included building inventory and maintenance planning, downtown revitalization grant preparation, continued professional development funding, and consideration of administrative staffing to support city-level functions.

- Clerk’s Office: two FTEs (clerk and deputy clerk Alicia). The Clerk reported a 2025 budget of $219,242 with salaries at about 67 percent and supplies 33 percent. The office has processed 122 FOIL requests so far this year (306 in 2024) and recommended FOIL-management and agenda-management software to streamline requests and redactions.

- Police Department: described as a full-service, accredited agency with 36.5 full-time employees (34 sworn, two administrative aides and 0.5 parking enforcement). The Police Chief said the department is operating below the staffing range cited in a prior staffing study and currently has 28 officers available for patrol; six officers are not available for road duty. Requests included re-establishing two abolished positions, a pilot 12-hour shift model to increase peak-hour coverage, continued vehicle replacement (including patrol vehicles and supervisor assignments), a social worker or mental-health partnership via grants, and other equipment and wellness programming. The Chief said school resource officers are provided under contract with the school district and that the district reimburses the city for those positions.

- IT Department: two staff shared with the City of Canandaigua on a 50/50 basis; an annual budget of roughly $500,000 was cited with salaries at about 27 percent and operating (phones, copying, network) at 54 percent. The IT Director, Peter, requested additional staff (subject to the shared arrangement), server and virtualization licensing changes, expanded cybersecurity measures, upgraded network and camera systems, and potential public Wi-Fi equipment refresh for downtown/lakefront locations.

- Human Resources: 1.9 FTE shared functions; HR described responsibilities including recruiting, benefits, workers’ compensation, collective bargaining support and succession planning. HR emphasized the need to centralize HR/payroll/records software to improve employee self-service, reduce paper, and speed FOIL and benefits responses. The HR office noted roughly 125.5 full-time permanent employees and seasonal staff counts for recreation and public works; retiree health-insurance rolls were also noted (about 40 retirees under 65 and 50 over 65).

- Fire Department: 21.5 FTE plus volunteers across three companies; budget requests included replacement of turnout gear sets (a multi-year replacement plan reduced this year from 15 to 12 sets), a replacement engine (engine 11), command-vehicle replacement, boat replacement, technical/rescue team development, bay-door replacements at Station 2, exhaust-system upgrades, continued self-contained breathing apparatus (SCBA) replacements and related compressors, and other equipment (thermal imagers, hydraulic rescue tools, fire simulator and training resources). The Fire Chief also noted ongoing shared-service collaboration with mutual-aid partners.

Councilors asked questions during the presentations about staffing models, grant strategies (police social worker, mental health partnerships), the division of building maintenance responsibilities (DPW handles building maintenance and would receive funded requests for repairs), and how shared backbone functions (IT, HR) support department-specific projects. The City Manager said staff would return with budget parameters and that departments will refine cost estimates as the process continues.

No formal budget decisions or votes were taken at the session; the presentations were framed as the informational first step in a multi-month process that will culminate with the City Manager’s formal budget presentation in September.