Upstate mayors rattle tin cups for increased state aid

Local leaders throughout the state flocked to Albany on Tuesday for the Local Government Officials and Local Government budget hearing, better known as “Tin Cup Day.” The mayors of Buffalo, Yonkers, Syracuse, Rochester and Albany – the state’s five largest municipalities other than New York City – testified to state lawmakers about their funding needs, emphasizing how their goals of increased affordability and public safety are closely aligned with the governor and state Legislature’s own goals.

Last year’s state budget included a $50 million boost in unrestricted Aid and Incentives to Municipalities funding, but that additional funding will run out after this following fiscal year, so leaders would prefer something more permanent, like coupling to the inflationary index. Each city also has more specific requests, including a permanent “payment in lieu of taxes” agreement for Albany’s Empire State Plaza, a 3% hotel and bed tax in Buffalo, funds for the Vision Zero traffic fatality program in Rochester, a new casino in Yonkers and aid for housing projects in Syracuse. But all of the mayors’ long-term hope is for an overarching revamp of AIM – a large funding source for localities that has remained stagnant following the 2008 financial crisis. 

“We are certainly grateful that they, finally, after 15 years, gave us the additional 50 million,” said Barbara Van Epps, executive director of the New York Conference of Mayors. “We are hoping to build upon that and just be a partner with the state. I think the fact that they finally did that increase really renewed our member's faith in the possibility of a true state, local partnership.”

Van Epps said it is unclear what is preventing lawmakers from moving faster to secure more local aid in budget proposals, especially as the Trump administration threatens federal funding. “I don't actually know what the holdup was,” she said. 

Brown & Weinraub lobbyist Alex Betke told City & State that part of the Legislature’s reluctance could stem from the possibility of a ballooning figure in the budget. Currently, the state sets aside $758 million for local municipalities to operate with. Even with state Budget Director Blake Washington’s cautiously optimistic outlook on New York’s fiscal future, the prospect of significantly increasing that amount could give lawmakers cold feet. 

“I think that there's been some reluctance on the legislative part just simply because it starts to get to be a big number and how do you balance that with property taxes that they're collecting, some of the sales tax, you see the hotel, motel taxes that are out there now,” Betke said. “How do you balance it all?”

Albany Mayor Kathy Sheehan is in the enviable position of having $400 million coming to her city for downtown revitalization projects, pending legislative approval. But she said that she and her peers across the state are concerned about the future of AIM funding, especially as cities attempt to bounce back following the pandemic. Between lead pipe removal programs and investments in local law enforcement, towns and cities across the state have a long to-do list that can’t necessarily be funded by local taxes alone. 

Like Van Epps, Sheehan is concerned that promised federal grant reimbursements for local projects – which often come only after a municipality has already spent its own money on a project – are no longer a given. That’s all the more reason, she said, that mayors needed predictable funding streams that are in line with the current economy. 

“Some of the funding that they thought we had we may not have, and so that's why knowing what our AIM amount is going to be, and knowing that it's going to go up with the cost of inflation, is so important to the ability of local government to just function,” Sheehan said.