WHEREAS, on February 15, 2019, Governor Cuomo announced a 30-Day Amendment to the 2020
Executive Budget making impacted towns and villages whole from changes to AIMfunding by utilizing revenue from county sales tax; and
WHEREAS, instead of restoring AIM with State funding and signifying a desire by the State to act as partners with local governments, this budget amendment requires counties to make up for lost AIM funding with sales tax revenue, imposing a new mandate on counties; and
WHEREAS, already-existing unfunded State mandates are the cause of high local taxes in New York State; and
WHEREAS, counties were granted the authority to levy a local sales tax in the late 1960s to help pay for Medicaid, indigent legal defense services, and other state mandates on counties, and
WHEREAS, requiring counties to make up for the State’s cut in AIM funding to villages and towns sets an unsustainable precedent and unnecessarily shifts the State’s burden to local taxpayers who already pay some of the highest property taxes in the nation; and
WHEREAS, currently nine state mandated programs placed on counties equals more than 90 percent of the typical county property tax levy, and these mandated costs continue to grow; and
WHEREAS, cutting AIM funding in the first place is a tax-shift from broad-based State income taxes to regressive local property taxes, and
WHEREAS, replacing what had been State AIM assistance with funding from county revenues is simply a tax-shift that will ultimately will result in higher property taxes; now therefore be it
RESOLVED, that Chemung County supports the full restoration of this state aid program to local governments and urges the Governor and State Legislature to fully restore this state funding in the final 2019/2020 state budget; and, be it further
RESOLVED, that copies of this resolution be sent to the counties of New York State encouraging member counties to enact similar resolutions; and be it further
RESOLVED that Clerk of the Chemung County Legislature is hereby authorized and directed to forward copies of this resolution to Governor Andrew M. Cuomo, the New York State Legislature and all others deemed necessary and proper.