Palumbo, along with Council member Doug Merrill, traveled to Albany recently to press for increases in AIM and arterial maintenance funding, something in the latter case has not been done since 1987.
“We’d really like to get it up to current rates,” Palumbo said.
Palumbo said he and others in the New York Conference of Mayors had good responses from who they talked to – in Canandaigua’s case, local legislators state Sen. Pam Helming, R-Canandaigua, and Assembly members Jeff Gallahan, R-Manchester, and Brian Manktelow, R-Lyons.
But, he said, small cities like Canandaigua, Geneva and Batavia are like little fish in the big pond of New York.
“Downstate gets a lot of attention,” Palumbo said. “We’re trying to keep fighting for what we need.”
Why should Canandaigua taxpayers care about AIM funding?
Aid and Incentives for Municipalities, or AIM, is funding provided by the state for the smaller municipalities.
Canandaigua gets $1,119,304.
The problem, according to Canandaigua City Manager John Goodwin, is the dollar amount has stayed the same since 2011. In fact, he said, the last time the state touched the amount was when funding was cut for it that year.
“I don’t think anybody would tell you that something in 2011 would cost the same as 2024, especially with the high inflation we’ve seen in recent years,” Goodwin said.
The money is used to support the costs of service the city provides, such as police officers and firefighters, maintaining parks and all basic municipal services, such as collecting garbage and recycling.
The funding is an important element needed to offset the property tax, Goodwin said.
“It’s an important non-property-tax revenue and we think we provide valuable service to not only the city but the state in general,” Goodwin said.
What is arterial maintenance and how does it affect Canandaigua?
Arterial maintenance is state money provided to a municipality for upkeep and repairs of state roads that run through the municipality.
In Canandaigua, that’s Routes 5 and 20, Main Street (Route 332) and Route 21.
Again, the problem here is that the state provides 85 cents per square yard, but that amount has not been changed since 1987, Palumbo said.
The money is used for snow plowing and salting these roads and filling potholes, for example.
Given the current Consumer Price Index rate, the city would have had $241,000 in the city budget for arterial maintenance.
“That was just about the increase of our levy last year,” Goodwin said. “If the state did its fair share, we could have covered the levy increase.”
Is there hope?
Although increases have been proposed in previous state budgets, ultimately the funding was pulled back and budgets were approved without them.
Palumbo said he is encouraged that mayors were able to meet face to face with legislators to plead their case. But, noting it’s been so long since AIM and arterial maintenance have increased, the mayors, along with taxpayers, will have to wait and see.
The state budget is due April 1.
“We’ll keep pounding it and pounding it,” Palumbo said.
This article originally appeared on MPNnow: Canandaigua Mayor Palumbo: More NY funding would help city taxpayers