unfunded state mandates

A letter sent today from Genesee County Legislature Chair Robert Bausch:

The State Budget currently being negotiated by state lawmakers is a double negative for local taxpayers.

On the one hand, it includes the Internet Fairness Act, which will require New Yorkers to pay sales taxes on more of their online purchases. At the same time, it takes the local share of those tax revenues and devotes it to funding programs that were cut in the state budget.

Specifically, the budget proposal creates a new mandate for county property taxpayers to backfill $60 million in state funding cuts to nearly 1,300 towns and villages. It also uses local tax dollars for other state initiatives such as early voting, bail reform, and a new lead monitoring program.

These new mandates are on top of the 9 state mandates that already consume more than $12 billion in local revenues from counties and NYC each and every year. That’s $1 billion a month in local tax dollars that was never invested in the local economies, infrastructure, services, and programs. These were local tax dollars taken by state leaders and spent the way that they see fit.

In Genesee County, we spend $28.7 million on state mandated programs and services, which consumes 98 percent of the property taxes we collected last year.

We urge Legislative Leaders and the Governor to demonstrate their commitment to all of our communities by rejecting the new unfunded state mandates proposed in this state budget.