Mayor Rolison’s Year in Review and Poughkeepsie’s Financial Crisis
A wet and snowy Thursday in late October glooms over the city of Poughkeepsie and creates a grey ambiance with the view from the third floor of City Hall. A week from the one year mark of Mayor Rob Rolison’s induction brings us to his office for a checkup.
Unaware of his upcoming milestone, Rolison had to take a step back and reflect that he’s the mayor of his hometown. “Did I ever think I was going to be the Mayor of Poughkeepsie? Is that something I would ever aspire to do? Not really,” Rolison said. “It’s just not something I thought a lot about.”
Now that it’s been 51 weeks since he was elected, he does not regret his decision to run. “It has been the most unbelievable experience of my life,” said Rolison.
Rolison spent the majority of his life in the Town of Poughkeepsie. At 18, he became a volunteer firefighter. At 21, he became a police officer where he would spend 26 years as a Town of Poughkeepsie police officer. He was a patrol officer, a detective for 14 years and served as the Union president at the same time for a decade.
As a lifelong Poughkeepsie resident, Rolison knew the problems coming into the job and had a plan when he got the vote. His campaign was based around three words that he truly believes in: safer, cleaner and stronger.
One of the things that Rolison has made an effort to do since his first day was cleaning up the city. “I made that a priority in working with the Department of Public works,” he said. “We’ve got that street sweeper out there and that’s been a noticeable difference. I’ve seen it and people can tell the difference too.”
Rolison and his team refer to them as “baitments” and their operation is called “baiting a problem.”
“We have the ability to go in and cite sanitation violations both at commercial and residential structures whether occupied or vacant and go in and clean them ourselves,” said Rolison.
The sanitation team that is assembled can cite a violation and 48 hours later, rectify it and then bill the property owner. If the bill isn’t paid, it gets levied on their tax return.
The sanitation department collects four days a week: Monday, Tuesday, Thursday and Friday. On Wednesdays, which are referred to as “non-collection days,” they have time to focus on properties that are planned out on Mayor Rolison’s pin map.
Rolison estimates 125 “baitments” since the beginning of the year and believes that there are three times as many that were done in 2015.
“With cleanliness and safety comes a stronger city,” Rolison said.
However, the City of Poughkeepsie finds itself in financial hole that it started digging for over a decade. “We’ve got a great work force and great community,” Rolison said. “The city is growing but fiscally, we’re in a crisis.”
In 2004, the city had a $9 million fund balance. A fund balance for a city acts like a savings account that municipalities are encouraged to have as a cushion for unforeseen expenses. It also helps to develop and manage the budget without having to always get increased revenues whether from the tax payers or other political strategies.
Previous administration officials in City Hall were using their fund balance to balance the budget, so every year when costs went up, they were using fund balance instead of trying to find alternative ways to handle the increase costs.
“They continued that practice of hitting accounts that they’re not supposed to, to balance budgets and other expenditures,” Rolison said. “So now, as of this year, we are 12.5 million dollars upside down.”
Poughkeepsie currently has a $12.5 million deficit. “There should’ve been no way, knowing what this was going to do to the long term fiscal health of the city, that any city council should’ve ever approved any budget that had these fictitious revenues in there,” said Rolison.
During the same time period that the city was “hitting” the accounts and creating a financial deficit, it was also eliminating departments that exist in every branch of government in any location. “If someone retired or left, they didn’t replace them, no economic development staff, no planning staff,” Rolison said. “At one time, those positions were occupied by multiple people.”
Rolison and his staff are actively trying to change a lot of these problems that he inherited when he took office and many people on his staff are doing multiple jobs by themselves.
“The city is growing but we don’t have the staff to assist on a lot of these things,” said Rolison. “The problem is, we don’t have any money to do it.”
A 10 page document handled by Rolison’s financial advisors made some suggestions on how to fix the problem in what they call the Fiscal Improvement Plan.
Some of the suggestions include: developing long and short term goals focusing on achieving the city’s mission envisions statement, draft some written policies, continue to seek out alternative sources of re-occurring revenues, restructuring city departments, partnership with the hospitals, develop and adopt a local tax improvement policy, review and adopt a new zoning plan, formal debt managing procedures, reduce debt authorization, developing a strategic approach to restore the cities bond rating and investigate the issue on some debt financing.
The city doesn’t have written policies or many sources of re-occurring revenue. Additionally, the city’s bond rating was dropped below investment grade. Some of those suggestions, however, Rolison claims that they’re doing or have already done.
“We’re re-doing the way we do business,” Rolison said. “We have no choice. I didn’t create this mess. I’m not going to fix it alone, but I have the ability for four years to guide the ship and right the ship.”
Being that Rolison is a former police officer, public safety is something he cares a lot about. He also understands the nation’s situation with the Black Lives Matter Movement (BLM).
“I believe we have a very strong and positive relationship between our police officers and the community,” said Rolison. “I have heard very little to the contrary. We’ve had a couple Black Lives Matter protests here and our officers have been right there with them and supporting them.”
Mayor Rolison takes pride in being “accessible” and not being a politician who “only shows up for a ribbon cutting.” He thinks that is important for people to know that they can come to him so things like that don’t happen in Poughkeepsie.
“Statistics don’t back up the cause completely, but that doesn’t mean that there are people in society who can live in the city of Poughkeepsie who don’t feel that way,” Rolison said. “Everybody has a right to feel how they feel and it is my responsibility, not just because I’m the mayor but as a person to let them know that I get that.”
Many prominent registered Republicans have recently rescinded their endorsement of Donald Trump for President of the United States. Rolison was elected mayor in Poughkeepsie as a Republican candidate in a predominantly Democratic district.
So does Rolison support Mr. Trump for President? Not exactly, but he doesn’t necessarily endorse Secretary Hillary Clinton either.
“I’m very upset with the way this race has played out and I think this will be a race that will be studied for years and years to come,” he said. “I haven’t focused on this presidential race because I’ve been so focused on what I’m doing here so I don’t know what I’m doing.”
Being the mayor of his hometown is something Rolison is “very proud of and humbled by.” But, this is where he grew up and he knows things have to change and is motivated to make a difference.
“I’ve already done the greatest things in the world,” he said. “I’ve been a firefighter and a police officer. I’m a dad and I’ve got a great wife. If my career ended tomorrow, I’ve got a pretty good list of stuff that I’m proud of. However, it would be nice knowing that I’ve left this place in better shape than it was when I got here.”
