City of Rochester
News Release
(Tuesday, July 31, 2018) – The City of Rochester faced a
significant budget gap of $47.6 million for the 2018-19 fiscal year. As part of our annual budget process, the
City engaged in a number of strategies and conversations with the public to
close the budget gap, including finding efficiencies and raising fees for
services. Included in that process was a
proposal to increase the enforcement hours for parking meters to 8:00 p.m. During our budget review period, issues
regarding the extended meter hours were not raised by our community.
After
hearing from our citizens and working with our Downtown stakeholders and the
business community, we have reached a compromise to rescind the extended
enforcement hours and increase the daytime hourly rate by fifty cents, from
$1.50 to $2.00 per hour. This change
will allow the City to realize the revenue that we anticipated in our budget
and allow our businesses to continue to thrive. This change will take effect immediately
if the budget amendment being proposed is approved at the Aug. 21 City Council
meeting. In the interim, the extended
parking hours until 8 p.m. will not be enforced.
“Our
City continues to face significant challenges and it is important for us to
find revenue streams that will help us maintain services and lessen the burden on
City taxpayers,” said Mayor Warren. “It is important for us to not only maintain
a vibrant Downtown but to build safer more vibrant neighborhoods, better
educational opportunities and jobs for our residents. Our City continues to provide 68 percent of
the taxes we collect ($119.1 million) to our school district without an
increase in state Aid to Municipalities Funding. As we are asked to do more with our limited
resources, providing exceptional service to our residents is our goal. That is why I’m thankful that our community
was able to come together to achieve a result that helps the City maintain its
budget projections and helps our citizens at the same time. This is a win/win solution for our entire
community.”
###
News
media: For more information contact Press Officer Jessica Alaimo at 428-7135.