Schenectady officials offer doomsday scenarios to fight cuts

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As the city’s department heads told it, next year will be like no year ever before. More fire trucks could break down, buildings may fall apart in new and entirely unexpected ways, windstorms might knock down scores of trees at once, and every large builder in the area will stop work for an entire year.

The department heads offered more and more ghastly scenarios Thursday morning in a fight to keep the City Council from cutting $1 million from the $76.9 million 2009 budget. The ongoing theme: You never know what might happen.

Eventually Councilman Mark Blanchfield flung up his hands in disgust and said, “We don’t know when the apocalypse is coming, but we don’t budget for that.”

He castigated Buildings and Grounds Supervisor Edward Montgomery for claiming he had “no idea” how much he would need to spend on building repairs next year.

“It’s your job to know!” Blanchfield shouted. “Repairs for facilities, it’s gone down for several years. When we have experience like that, it’s time.”

He proposed cutting the repairs line $110,000 to $75.000.

As of the end of September, Montgomery had spent just $43,600 of that line. But Montgomery produced records showing he had quickly spent $48,400 in the past three weeks.

“Due to the age of the facilities we have here and the neglect we have inherited, it’s hard to predict what will break,” he said.

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