Votes at a glance: Utica council adopts multiple budget amendments, discharges several ordinances

The Utica Common Council on March 18 considered and acted on multiple budget amendments and ordinance discharges across city departments, adopting several items and asking the comptroller’s office to provide a consolidated calculation of how the changes affect the tax levy.

Key outcomes recorded in the meeting record include:

- Interfund transfer (described as Interfund CIT): amended from $750,000 to $1,400,000 (change $650,000). Vote text in the record: “Budget amendment be ordained … Interfund CIT 750,000. To 1,400,000 a change of 650,000 rationale increase line to reduce tax levy.” The transcript shows the item was adopted (notation in packet: “9E's adopted”).

- Ordinances 1–4: Introduced as a joint package to replace health-care items in committee; council noted that Ordinances 1–4 were a joint pack and available for discussion. These were included among the introduced items and were available for amendment or pull; specific final tallies for each were recorded in the meeting packet.

- Ordinance 6 (cost-of-living salary adjustments): Amended to specify a suspension until 12/31/2026 and adopted as amended (see separate article).

- Ordinance 10 (Mayor salaries / budget line): Several adjustments were discussed. The meeting record lists a change from $300,732 to $293,572 (negative change $7,160) with discussion about corrected ENA-approved salary amounts. The council recorded adoption in roll calls noted as “9 ayes” or similar phrasing in the transcript; members debated whether the correct base and amended numbers were reflected in the packet.

- Ordinance 11 (Controller salaries / budget line): The transcript records Controller A51315101 with a salaries line of $757,173 and later roll-call adoption; the meeting noted amendments were added to the ENA-approved budget after the council submitted some earlier changes.

- Ordinance 12 (Common Council salaries): Motion to amend the Common Council salaries line from $246,221 to $234,891 (negative change $11,330) was presented and recorded as adopted in the meeting minutes.

- Ordinance 13 (Law department salaries): Motion to amend the Law Department salaries from $745,124 to $669,745 (negative change $75,379) was presented and recorded as adopted.

- Ordinances affecting the Utica Police Department (26, 27, 28, 29 and related police criminal investigation lines): Multiple police-related budget corrections were pulled from committee and voted on; several items were described as correcting calculation errors and not removing positions. The record shows a mixture of roll-call results; for example, an adjustment to Police Criminal Investigation salaries from $4,061,328 to $3,000,969 with a recorded negative change of $92,172 was presented and the record shows adoption not removing positions.

- General direction: Council repeatedly requested that the comptroller’s office provide a single, consolidated summary of all amendments passed and the effect of those changes on the tax levy before the council’s next meeting so members can determine if additional amendments are required.

Where the transcript explicitly records roll-call counts, the meeting record phrases were preserved (for example, multiple items show “9 ayes adopted,” or “9 nays adopted” in the notes). For items with discussion over base numbers or ENA revisions, council members noted inconsistencies between the packet, ENA-approved amendments, and the numbers they had submitted earlier; staff agreed to supply corrected figures.

The council adjourned after taking the actions above and assigning the comptroller’s office the task of delivering updated, itemized totals.