Ken Ivins launches bid to reclaim finance seat

Former city finance commissioner Ken Ivins has announced he will run for the position again this fall.

Ivins, a Republican, will be seeking to re-take the position he held for four years before he was defeated by Democrat Michele Madigan, who is now the incumbent. He has filed petitions to get the Republican and Reform party ballot lines.

“During my campaign, I want to focus on my vision for this great city,” Ivins said on Tuesday. “I want a city where we do not have to choose between the services we want and what we can afford.”

Ivins criticized Madigan for her part in infighting within the five-member City Council, and for pursuing projects that are normally outside the purview of the finance commissioner, who oversees the city’s budget and finances.

On Wednesday, Madigan fired back. “I stand by my record as finance commissioner, dramatically improving the city’s budgeting, restoring services that were needlessly cut by Mr. Ivins and I’ve done so without raising taxes,” she said.

Ivins, however, said that he saw the city budget through the revenue losses of the Great Recession and the loss of state payments tied to the video lottery terminals at Saratoga Casino and Raceway.

“The budget was in very good shape when I left, we had a fund balance and a zero tax increase,” he said. “We weathered the recession, and we weathered the loss of VLT aid.”

Ivins, who ran and lost a race for Saratoga County supervisor in 2013, works in information technology and bookkeeping for two insurance companies.