AUBURN - City manager John Salomone's plan for city management reorganization involves the reduction of eight departments to four, for a savings of $183,683, which, when combined with additional revenue from the landfill and other new revenue sources, would prevent layoffs and reduce the tax levy increase from 9 to 6 percent.

Mayor Tim Lattimore released a city management reorganization plan on Monday that involved a reduction from eight departments to three. Lattimore and councilor Matt Smith have both requested in recent weeks that Salomone present the council with a workable proposal to reduce management costs.

Salomone's plan, presented Thursday night, would consolidate public works with the department of municipal utilities, consolidate engineering with the department of planning and economic development and create one director of public safety to oversee police and fire operations. The corporation counsel, now a department on its own, would be overseen by the city manager.

Some of the changes need to be reviewed to ensure they comply with the city charter, civil service law and case law before they could be accepted. Additional analysis would be needed for the public safety director option, Salomone said.

The savings would come through some pay reductions and the elimination of the fire chief position, which will become vacant in June. The city would also get additional reimbursements from the Department of Housing and Urban Development by putting the engineering department within the planning department.

Councilor David Dempsey presented a three-year plan two weeks ago, which involved generating $314,000 in additional landfill revenue in the coming year, and asking the city's unions to forgo salary increases this year to prevent all layoffs. In his plan, he proposed to use revenue to reduce the tax levy increase from 9 to 5 percent.

With Salomone's management reorganization, the additional landfill revenue, $290,000 in from the school district for the school resource officer program, $190,000 saved from no longer having to pay unemployment benefits, $50,000 in HUD reimbursements and $34,000 from the water fund, the city could prevent layoffs without asking the unions to forgo raises, which none have agreed to so far. The tax increase would also drop to 6 percent.

County chairman George Fearon, however, announced Thursday the county would be giving the city $192,000 in revenue, which comes from a sales tax change 10 years ago when the sales tax rate increased from 7 to 8 percent. Lowering the tax increase by each percent requires $90,000.

In order to proceed with the landfill plan, the council must pass a resolution to get a permit modification from the Department of Environmental Conservation. Paul Dudden, an engineer with Barton and Loguidice, the landfill's engineering firm, said it could take two months to get papers from the DEC, so Salomone said the council would need to pass the resolution soon to start the permitting process and ensure the additional revenue in the coming year.

Smith, however, questioned the plan, saying he didn't want to bet on assumptions of additional revenue, since some of the earlier cells didn't produce as much revenue.

“I want to make my decisions based on past experience, not on assumptions,” Smith said. “I think it's very dangerous to play Russian roulette with the taxpayers.”

Frank DeOrio, director of municipal utilities, said that when the landfill began to accept more tonnage, from about 20,000 to the current 76,000, the landfill began generating significantly more revenue so that closure and debt service costs could be covered over the life of the landfill.

Lattimore said he saw a lot of similarities between his reorganization proposal and Salomone's overall reorganization plan: “It's good you did bring a proposal,” he said.

Staff writer Anne Gleason can be reached at 253-5311 ext. 248 or at anne.gleason@lee.net