Albany Taxpayers Footing Bill for Capital Hills Golf Course?

by Rene Marsh, Times Union

November 26, 2007 - 6:26PM

Common Council member Dominick Calsolaro says for every club that swings at the Capital Hills Golf Course in Albany, taxpayers are paying for it. The course, he says, isn't making enough revenue to cover operating costs so Albany taxpayers end up footing the bill.

“I don’t know, at this time when the city is borrowing 8 million dollars from the fund balance to balance next year's budget, if the taxpayers should be supplementing the golfers at the golf course,” said Calsolaro.

But Mayor Jerry Jennings responded, “I put a responsible budget together with the least amount of impact on the taxpayers in the city.”

Like many of the city's council members and the city's comptroller, Calsolaro says Mayor Jennings' budget is a fiscal problem. They say Jennings needs to cut spending and increase revenue.

Calsolaro says increasing fees at the city's golf course will make up the green the city's lacking.

“That sounds crazy what Dominick is proposing, plain and simple he doesn’t know what he’s talking about," says Jennings. "If he wants to save money or generate revenues, let him come up with some other ideas that are not going to hurt the people in the city, like cut the Common Council in half and giving that money back to the city."

City records show in 2005 Capital Hills made 1,008,653 dollars in revenue. That’s more than 71,000 dollars shy of what it costs to run the course. Taxpayers paid the 71,000 dollars the course didn’t make in revenue.

In 2006, Albany taxpayers paid more than 180,000 dollars because the courses' revenue did not cover operational costs.

So far, for 2007, taxpayers will shell out more than 5,000 dollars to cover expenses.

But Mayor Jennings says recreation is not intended to be a money maker.

“Its like Lincoln park pool, soccer programs where his children participate in they're not free they cost us money its part of my budget its part of the quality of life issue we have in the city and I’m not going to agree with any of the increases he's talking about,” said Jennings.

Calsolaro says the Mayor’s priorities are mixed up.

“The city teen centers should be open on weekends when the kids aren't in school and for 25,000, we can’t find 25,000 for that but we can find well over 200,000 to supplement golfers using the golf course,” says Calsolaro.

Our Fact Finder team checked in with other cities to find out how revenues at their golf course matched up with their expenditures. In Troy, their municipal golf course made $788,126 in 2006.

That’s more than 187,000 dollars more than it cost to run the course.

We should note these totals do not include those expenditures that may have been incurred under the entire recreation bureau which are shared with the city's golf course, Frear park .

In Schenectady their municipal golf course had made more than 796,000 dollars in revenue.

That's nearly 103,000 dollars more than it costs to run the course.