09/24/2026
When 9:01 launched our Voter Education Series, we started with one of the most important issues facing Albany: our City’s financial crisis.
Karl Urich of Albany Data Stories and former Common Council member Judy Doesschate continue to bring that conversation into our neighborhoods, recently presenting at the Upper Washington Avenue Neighborhood Association.
Albany is facing serious fiscal challenges, and the next City budget will be an important step in determining how we move forward.
We look forward to Mayor Dorcey Applyrs’ budget presentation and hearing her administration’s plan for addressing the fiscal crisis, managing the City’s debt, and putting Albany on a more sustainable financial path.
The Mayor must present her proposed budget to the Common Council on or before October 1. Then comes the hard work: reviewing the numbers, asking tough questions, and making the decisions necessary to move Albany forward.
Albany residents deserve a clear plan, transparency, and accountability. Voter education is only the beginning. Contact your Common Council member. Ask questions.
At 9:01, there is always time to pay attention.
This is Karl from ADS. Last night I co-presented on the City's financial crisis at the Upper Washington Neighborhood Association. It's not a particularly fun presentation to give (discussing our City's financial crisis, its root causes and the remedies) but it's a necessary one. How do you dig yourself out of a hole? Acknowledge you're in a hole, measure how deep you are in the hole, understand what got you in the hole.
I like using household finance analogies to help explain the City's crisis - households get into grave financial trouble because of debt. Households either take on too much debt by living beyond their means, or they face an emergency (frequently healthcare emergencies) that pile on unexpected debt. Debt triggers a financial death spiral that's tough to recover from - increased debt requires increased debt service, which takes $s away from the things that you have to spend money on, which causes households to take on more debt to fill the gaps.
If there is a single slide that I would pull out from the presentation it is this one. The City had a manageable level of debt in the 2010s and into 2021 and then... we became the household living beyond our means.
In 2019 our Capital Improvement Budget (what we use to pay for street repairs, buildings, fire and police equipment, etc) was $17 million, $13m of which was financed with debt, the remainder with cash and grants.
In 2025 our Capital Improvement Budget was $65m, $44m of which was financed with debt.
In 6 years our Capital Improvement budget grew 4x, the amount financed with debt grew 3.5x. In 6 years.
And our debt grew from a generally manageable 8 figures well into 9 figures. 9-10% of the City's budget (and growing) now goes to debt service, where a mere two years ago it was under 7%.
As I've said in many forums, we're a City that has been living beyond its means and the bill has come due.
