Poughkeepsie Mayor Vetoes 'Speculative' Revenue Items in 2017 Budget

POUGHKEEPSIE, NY — Six amendments to the 2017 City of Poughkeepsie budget were vetoed by Mayor Rob Rolison.

The budget was approved by a 5-2 vote, with one absence, the Poughkeepsie Journal said, and the common council will need six votes to override the mayor’s veto.

In a veto message posted on the city’s website, Rolison said he was vetoing the budget amendments because they were based on speculative revenue, something for which the city had been criticized by the state comptroller.

Further, the mayor said the common council had not adopted legislation necessary to collect the projected revenue.

“It is not a fiscally sound practice to build revenue into our budget for which there has not yet been any enabling legislation adopted,” Rolison said.

The amendments that were voted were increasing bus fares, building fees, taxi cab rates and common council health care reimbursement and decreasing upper management salary by 1.5 percent.

The total amount of revenue that would have been added to the budget was $570,045.

For more details, read the complete Poughkeepsie Journal article here.

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