A Tale of Two Cities, One State
Let me tell you the tale of two cities.
The first is a thriving, growing metropolis benefitting from a growing manufacturing sector, modern infrastructure, and great schools and parks. It has robust public safety forces and has found innovative ways to protect tenants and build new housing. Residents are eager to move in and move up.
The second is struggling. This City has a structural budget gap, concentrated poverty, and a stagnant population. Its public safety forces mainly focus on crisis response, and the benefits of economic development are felt by the suburbs. Infrastructure is failing. Vacant positions with low salaries hamper public services. Empty storefronts and vacant lots dot the landscape.
Right now, my city of Syracuse is near a fork in the road between these two options. With the potential for exponential growth due to Micron and growing chip industry, the first vision is genuinely achievable. But because of a structural budget deficit, we are looking down the second path.
The choice between these two visions will not be made at City Hall. It will be made in Albany, and I hope they make the right decision.
How did we get here?
Governor George Pataki created the Aid and Incentives for Municipalities (AIM) funding program to provide additional revenue to local governments in exchange for meeting certain performance goals, like keeping property taxes low. Many cities, including mine, went along with these ideas. Governor Andrew Cuomo cut the program’s funding and froze it permanently at 2012 levels.
This created tremendous hardship for communities. What was supposed to be a brief pause turned into a permanent cut. Until 2024, we continued being funded at the same levels of over a decade before, when a small increase was factored into the last two budgets.
Unlike AIM funding, the challenges we face are not frozen in amber. In addition to providing basic services like public safety, snow plowing, and infrastructure, we must find ways to be competitive employers of choice, mitigate the threat of climate change, and build a new generation of housing while protecting vulnerable tenants. Syracuse also leads the nation in categories we should not be proud of: Child poverty. 10% of our Syracuse City School District students are homeless; many more are not far behind.
Needless to say, now is not an easy time to be leading a City.
Why did this happen? Failed racist federal policies of the last century promoted white flight, concentrating economic inequality in the urban core. Our challenges grew as our property tax base shrank. Our industries changed from manufacturing – which supported the City with property taxes – to major non-profits, like Syracuse University and SUNY Upstate Medical University, which are predominately tax-exempt but heavily reliant on expensive municipal services and staffed in large part by suburban residents.
While sales tax has grown, an economic episode like a recession or pandemic could wipe out those gains – like happened in 2008 and 2020.
Our future is in the hands of New York State. Wisely, Governor Kathy Hochul has provided an additional aid to local governments over the last two years – a strong down payment on future actions for which we are very grateful. In their one-house budgets, legislative leaders have called for even higher increases.
We live in a state where, according to the Governor’s own budget book, we are in a strong financial position thanks to her thoughtful fiscal leadership. New York State continues to generously fund economic development programs, including the $800 million film tax credit and $275 million Empire AI program.
New York is in a position where we can increase funding available to cities. I believe there should be a 30% increase to the AIM program – which would bring it roughly to the levels where it would be had Governor Cuomo not frozen it in 2012 and 2.5% annual increases been allowed to continue. That would amount to an increase of about $213 million, or less than 1% of the overall state budget.
Those resources would make the difference between trying to make tough decisions about what we must cut – like our City Council did last year, when they made a nearly $6 million cut to police and fire services – and using our time to thoughtfully invest in innovation, successful public safety strategies, and housing.
The choice between the tale of two cities falls to New York’s leadership. I urge them to make the right decision.
Alexander Marion, MPA
Syracuse City Auditor
