Auburn’s budget debate moved deeper into the city’s fiscal crisis Thursday night, with City Council hearing budget presentations from civil service, finance, and the police department as a packed room of residents, union leaders, and family members pressed officials to avoid cuts that could reshape city services. Much of the urgency in the room centered on the police budget, but the broader discussion made clear council is also grappling with a bigger structural problem: how to stabilize city finances beyond this year’s painful choices.
The meeting’s budget portion began with Auburn Civil Service Commission Chair Jack Hardy, who described a relatively small department budget that nonetheless showed a sharp increase on paper. Hardy said the commission’s requested 2026-27 budget was about $114,481, up from a revised 2025-26 budget of roughly $80,579, but said much of that jump was tied to software, fringe benefit costs, and information technology expenses being shifted back into the department. He also told council the city was continuing to modernize hiring by moving toward more vacancy-based, online civil service testing and outreach.
Finance Comptroller Mary Beth Leeson then brought the conversation back to the city’s larger financial posture, stressing that Auburn will not dig out of its problems with one dramatic move. Instead, she said, the city needs a series of smaller, disciplined fixes, including a stricter debt policy, more realistic revenue forecasting, and tighter internal controls shaped by outside auditors. Leeson said the city’s audit process is central to that work because it influences best practices, bond ratings, and the state’s view of Auburn’s financial health.
Leeson told council the city’s long-term debt payments are down about $300,000 from last year and said Auburn is now trying to reduce both long-term debt and short-term borrowing. She said the city plans to borrow every other year instead of annually, calling borrowing expensive and warning that Auburn needs to keep its short-term borrowing below $20 million when possible to protect its rating. She also said one of the biggest lessons from the current budget cycle is that the city can no longer afford to overestimate revenue, arguing that conservative revenue projections give Auburn at least a chance to rebuild fund balance instead of digging itself deeper.
Council members pressed Leeson repeatedly on how the city avoids landing in the same position a year from now. In one of the sharper exchanges of the night, Councilor Craig Diego argued that Auburn cannot make major cuts, exhaust its reserves, and come back next spring facing the same problem again. Leeson responded that the city needs a realistic budget it can actually perform to and said officials are trying to build that approach into this year’s numbers.
The most politically charged presentation came from Police Chief Matthew Androsko, whose department was already under a spotlight before budget talks formally began. During public comment, Auburn Police union president Michael Bufano warned council against what he described as a dangerous move to cut officers, saying the department handles about 30,000 calls a year with fewer than 70 officers and arguing proposed layoffs and unfilled vacancies would increase response times and reduce officer safety. Family members of newer officers echoed that message, saying the city had already invested heavily in hiring and training them.
Androsko later told council the department handled nearly 31,000 calls last year and logged more than 20,000 hours of training, or more than 300 hours per officer. He said the police budget was already reduced at the outset by the elimination of three officer positions and the chief’s secretary position, which he said amounted to about a 3.5% cut before overtime and other costs were considered. He also said the department requested more realistic overtime funding because actual annual spending typically lands between $300,000 and $350,000, well above prior budgeted levels.
The police budget documents showed a requested 2026-27 total of about $14.13 million, compared with an original 2025-26 budget of about $8.84 million, but Androsko said part of that apparent jump is tied to major cost categories that were not carried in the department budget last year. Those newly reflected expenses include police retirement, Social Security and Medicare, 207-c costs, and health, dental, and vision insurance. He also said the department requested six patrol vehicles, another major cost driver in the plan.
Council’s questions showed that the city is not just weighing cuts line by line, but trying to decide what kind of budget framework Auburn can live with over time. Thursday’s meeting did not resolve that larger question, but it made one thing plain: even as department heads defended their requests, the real fight is no longer only about who gets cut this year. It is about whether Auburn can finally build a budget that stops this crisis from repeating itself.
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