Jamestown Mayor Kim Ecklund and City Council President Tony Dolce at the Council Work Session (December 1, 2025)
The City of Jamestown has received $1.3 million Reimbursement from the New York State Financial Restructuring Board.
The funding is reimbursements of costs for the city for moving city retirees from city health insurance to a Medicare program.
Mayor Kim Ecklund announced to City Council Monday night that the city received the money just before Thanksgiving. She said her administration had worked hard with the state for the last year to set up the contract needed to receive that money.
In 2017, the Sam Teresi administration had a contract with the state that would provide $17,000 each to enrollees in the city healthcare plan between the ages of 65-69, $12,000 for those between the age of 70 and 74, $8,000 for those between the age of 75 and 79, and $3,000 for anyone 80 and over to move over to a non-city plan. In return, the state’s Financial Restructuring Board would reimburse the city up to $1.5 million.
City Comptroller Ericka Thomas said while not many signed up for that program at that time, the city did receive a $200,000 reimbursement from the state.
In 2021, a committee made up of city administration, active and retired employees worked to create a program where retirees age 65 and older and their spouses would voluntarily move from city health insurance to the Medicare supplement program. Retirees who opted in had one year to decide to move back to the city’s plan. They also received health insurance free for five years and were then locked into the rate they were paying in 2021 for the remainder of their time on the new plan. That plan was approved by City Council in 2021.
Thomas said that while up to 155 of the more than 300 eligible retirees had taken advantage of the plan, the administration under then Mayor Eddie Sundquist had not submitted a new contract with the state to get the reimbursement.
Ecklund said the city had to use $1.3 million from the unassigned fund balance to balance the 2025 budget. She said this funding received in November will go back to the unassigned fund balance, bringing that account to about $5 million.
Ecklund said her staff will begin evaluating at the beginning of 2026 on whether to try to move forward with a similar or new program to save the city money on retiree medical costs. She said that will include research into what may still be available in funding at the state level as well as possibly applying for funding through Chautauqua County’s Government Efficiency Fund.
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