Oneonta Council discusses 2021 budget and deficit they're facing due to COVID-19

The Oneonta Common Council held a meeting Wednesday night to discuss what their budget will look like for 2021.

Look like for 2021.

Newschannel 2's caitlin irla joins us now live in studio with that story new tonight...caitlin good evening.

Good evening jason.

The city of oneonta is facing a 5 million dollar budget deficit.

Tonight, the council discussed their draft budget... and there is a proposed 2 percent tax levy increase.

City officials are projecting revenue losses of about 1.8 million dollars from the 2020 budget, including losses in sales tax revenue and state aid... because of the coronavirus pandemic.

Virginia lee, the director of finance for the city of oneonta, says it's important to make sure the city keeps a strong fund balance because she believes the pandemic will continue to affect the 2021 budget.

"some people would say the city of oneonta has an extremely strong fund balance and others may say it's not strong enough but i believe it's a good, strong fund balance and even though we're going to be taking a hit during covid, it will remain a strong fund balance, but we really do have to be careful to not let this use of fund balance to continue."

Again, this is just a draft budget.

The council will meet again on november 5th.

A public hearing on the budget is scheduled for the end of november.

And the budget is expected to be adopted by december 2nd.

Jason, back to you.

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