Albany Mayor Sheehan presents 2025 proposed budget

ALBANY, N.Y. (NEWS10) -- Albany Mayor Kathy Sheehan presented the 2025 Albany proposed budget on Tuesday morning. The proposed budget includes funding for public safety and mental health services, infrastructure investments, workforce investments, and more.

Proposed Budget for the City of Albany

Investing in Public Safety & Mental Health Services:

• New York State’s largest Crime Analysis Center at Albany Police Department's Headquarters continues to be an invaluable resource in the City’s efforts to enhance public safety:
  • Overall property crime is down 15%
  • Confirmed shots fired down 15%
  • Homicides down 29%
  • Illegal guns recovered up to 54%
• Creating 5 non-sworn positions in Albany Police Department to take on administrative tasks and free up more officers to be deployed in Albany’s neighborhoods

Mental Health & Substance Abuse Crisis:

• Albany Navigates – the joint mental health and housing resource program in partnership with Albany County – started in June and is already having an impact:
  • Street Outreach Team:
    • 314 encounters
    • 183 admissions
  • Health & Housing Navigation:
    • 70 referrals
    • 32 enrollments

Creating World-Class Recreational Facilities for Our Residents:

• $10 million grant from the New York SWIMS program to help build the new Lincoln Park Pool
• $8.5 million to help build the new Albany West Community Center
• $2.75 million to help revitalize the Albany South Recreation Center
• $2 million to revitalize the Corning Preserve, Pitch Pine, and Shaker Park Playgrounds and build a state-of-the-art Washington Park Playground
• $390,000 to rehabilitate the Sheridan Hollow and Lounello Park Spraypads

Historic Infrastructure Investments:

• $16.1 million in streets and sidewalks
• $1 million to expand Traffic Speed Reduction (Speed Humps)
• $3.1 million for Traffic and Pedestrian Safety improvements, including new crosswalks and signals
• School Zone Speed Cameras to be installed at 20 school zones across Albany
• City-wide 25 MPH Speed Limit taking effect January 1, 2025
• Realigned Department of Engineering will oversee the design and construction of all street improvement projects moving forward - with emphasis on traffic calming, Americans with Disabilities Act compliance, bicycle infrastructure, and pedestrian safety

Investing in Our Future:

• $13 million over the next five years to construct the infrastructure necessary to convert the City fleet
• Enhancing our Climate Action Plan:
  • Development of climate adaption and mitigation responses
  • Focus on both government operations and the community-at-large
  • Prioritization of climate justice through community engagement and actionable outcomes
• Investment of $24 million over the next five years to determine the future of solid waste management in the City of Albany after the closure of Rapp Road Landfill that is scheduled to occur in 2026

Investing in the City’s Workforce:

• Living wage increase from $15.52 in 2021 to $18.99 in this budget
• Currently settled with 10 of 12 bargaining units, including all of the City’s police and fire bargaining units for the first time in recent memory.
• Increased investment in training organization-wide.

Albany For All Program:

• Capitalize Albany, the Downtown BID, and the Central Avenue BID provided small businesses more than $1 million in grants to 78 small businesses
• Rehabilitated 88 apartments at Steamboat Square
• 240 refugee and migrant families receiving support services
• 10 properties in the renovation pipeline to become affordable single-family homes, with two complete
• 17 affordable homes built and 12 more are in the pipeline
• 631 residents supported with navigation through housing, food, and financial insecurity
• 3,000 square feet of new space for LGBTQI+ BIPOC service delivery
• 30,000 square feet of space purchased for new Community Centers

Securing Grant Resources:

• $10 million for Roadways
• $11 million for Recreation Facilities
• $2.9 million for Youth & Workforce Development
• $1.7 million for Gun Violence Elimination Program
• $350,000 million for Sustainability Efforts
• $600,000 to eliminate home health hazards
• $400,000 for Urban Forestry
• $300,000 for housing acquisition and rehabilitation to support low-income households

Ensuring Albany Receives Its Fair Share – Permanently:

• The City of Albany is requesting that New York State:
  • Combine and re-base Capital City Funding and our Empire State Plaza PILOT to be a total of $35 million for the state fiscal year 2025-26.
  • Make them permanent under New York State Public Lands Law.
  • Tie them to the tax levy growth factor into the future.
• 64% of all property in the City of Albany is tax-exempt.
• New York State owns nearly 40% of all property in the City of Albany – worth more than $6.5 billion.
• Put another way: New York State owns more property than the entire taxable base of property in the entire city.
• The cost of maintaining roads and sidewalks and providing police, fire, and emergency services to accommodate and protect the tens of thousands of State workers and visitors falls on our residents.
• Providing this level of service while being denied our fair share of permanent, unrestricted state aid is not fair and is not sustainable.
• No other city in New York State is forced to endure this situation every year, and we cannot ask our residents, businesses, and taxpayers to carry a larger burden simply because they choose to make the Capital City their home.

“We went from borrowing against our future to securing unprecedented Capital City Funding and providing competitive wages to our frontline heroes. After years of doing more with less, we are investing tens of millions of dollars in our aging infrastructure to repave our streets, rebuild our parks, and revitalize our community centers. After a once-in-a-century pandemic, we are building back better," Sheehan said.