The city of Oneonta’s Department of Public Works faces high demand to keep various infrastructure functioning, including streets, sidewalks and water systems.
Operations could always be more efficient, however, and the city’s Budget Review Committee took a look at information from Public Works Director Chris Yacobucci about services, costs and where changes could be made to increase efficiency with an eye toward saving money at its meeting Tuesday, June 24.
The committee was created to address a $1.68 million deficit in the city budget and explore potential cost savings and revenue generation. The committee began meeting monthly in January after a contentious vote on the 2025 budget, and has been hearing from department heads about their services, staffing levels, costs and areas for improvement.
A backlog of aged and failing infrastructure exceeds the capacity of the engineering division, and all other DPW divisions, Yacobucci said. Consultants are utilized when necessary, but that comes at a cost of about three times city staff’s hourly rates, including benefits.
“Sometimes we have to, just because we can’t handle the workload,” he said. “It’s so much. We’re really swamped.”
Yacobucci said he already uses city staff for construction projects, when appropriate, instead of hiring contractors. He cited the this week’s road work on River Street — the milling and paving work was contracted out, but DPW staff performed traffic control and materials hauling.
“There’s a significant savings to be had when we can use our crews,” he said, about $240,000 on River Street. “But we are really stretched. We’re doing the absolute maximum we possibly can do.”
There is a proactive repair of city streets project, with DPW aiming to do a full reconstruction of two miles a year to last 20 years. But close to 70 miles of the city’s water mains are near the end of their life expectancy and costly to replace, and Yacobucci said he doesn’t have the staff to do the project completely.
Water mains, made of cast iron, have about 100 years of life expectancy, and much of it is at that point, he said.
“We are heading toward a time bomb, so to say, because the older it gets, the more water main breaks we’re going to have,” he said. “Water main is not cheap to replace. If we hire a consultant, if we hire a contractor that does all of it, we’re looking at $2 and $3 million a mile. So looking at the amount of miles that we have to replace, you can do the math. It’s a lot of money.”
Maintaining the same level of services without an increase in budget would require reducing or limiting levels of service. There are potential revenue-generating services, such as charging for water meter turn-ons, and cost-saving measures, like reduced snow and ice removal and overtime reduction.
Overtime is primarily due to emergencies, and Yacobucci identified potential efficiencies in park calls, for things like flipping a circuit breaker or righting a fallen portable toilet, and volunteer involvement in tasks like watering trees, flag raising and trail maintenance.
Changes in federal funding could reduce funding for streets, water, and sewer projects, impacting the amount of repair work that can be done, he said. Since 2016, the city has received $44 million in DPW-related grants for infrastructure projects that cost $66 million.
The committee has its last scheduled presentation in July from Oneonta Public Transit. Starting at its August meeting, the committee plans to begin reviewing all information from the presentations.