Mayors from across upstate New York told state lawmakers this week that additional aid is needed to shore up city budgets and head off potentially “detrimental” cuts.
The leaders of Buffalo, Rochester, Syracuse, Albany, Yonkers and Niagara Falls spoke to legislators Wednesday during the annual budget hearing known as “Tin Cup Day.”
The mayors said the state’s Aid and Incentives to Municipalities or AIM funding has remained largely flat for more than a decade, while state tax revenues have doubled.
“In the words of Rihanna, we're just asking to be paid what we're owed,” Rochester Mayor Malik Evans told lawmakers. “I'm not asking for anything extra. All I am asking for is per capita that every other city gets, and that would be $30 million.”
Rochester has received $88,234,464 in AIM funding each year since the 2012 fiscal year, and it would remain at that level under Gov. Kathy Hochul’s proposed budget.
In the past couple of years, the state added $50 million in what’s known as Temporary Municipal Assistance, or TMA, to distribute across New York state. Rochester, Buffalo, Syracuse and Yonkers each received $5 million per year.
New York City has not received AIM funding since the Great Recession.
Buffalo Mayor Sean Ryan said without state help, the city’s fiscal situation would grow more dire. He wants more freedom to set tax rates and borrow money, if necessary, as a part of a “three-year soft-landing plan.”
But in the meantime, he’s seeking more state support to help close a budget gap that could be tens of millions of dollars.
“Our services have already been cut to the bone. There's not much left to trim,” Ryan said. “But if we don't begin to close our budget gaps, the only option we would have is to further reduce our police force … and Fire Department and city workers.”
Other mayors like Albany’s Dorcey Applyrs and Syracuse’s Sharon Owens cited the issue of tax-exempt properties reducing potential city revenues and urged lawmakers to factor that into the AIM formula.
“Because it's not just a city that is being served,” Owens said. “Those institutions serve entire regions.”
While cities receive some payments in lieu of taxes from nonprofit institutions and in Albany’s case, state government, to offset some of the costs, the mayors said that’s not enough.
Appylrs also urged lawmakers to renew an agreement for the Empire State Plaza that expires in 2031.
Some state legislators seemed sympathetic to the mayors’ pleas.
“I just want to say I definitely agree that we need to look at the revenue sharing by the state, because a lot of the issues I'm hearing is that local governments are in a precarious fiscal situation,” said Assemblymember Michaelle Solages, a Long Island Democrat and chair of the Assembly Committee on Local Governments. “(And) as mayors, you are in the forefront of making sure that our New Yorkers get good services,”
But whether that translates to widespread changes this year remains to be seen.
“I’m cautiously optimistic,” Evans said. “I think you heard from every mayor that if it does not happen this year, I don't know when it will happen. And it will be detrimental to our cities if it does not.”
Ryan, Owens and Appylrs were on the “Tin Cup” panel for the first time as they are newly elected mayors. Niagara Falls Mayor Robert Restaino also joined, and while also concerned about AIM, pushed for a separate ask he said would boost his city’s tax revenues. He’s seeking $200 million for Centennial Park, a new year-round, multi-purpose facility.
“This is a piece of a puzzle, a puzzle that we've been growing over the course of the last several years that I've been in office, but we do believe it serves as a catalyst for future development and opportunity,” Restaino told lawmakers.
Budget negotiations will begin in earnest after the House and Senate unveil their own funding proposals next month.
