Governor Cuomo Proposes Cutting State Aid To Local Municipalities

As part of his executive budget proposal for the 2020 fiscal year, Governor Andrew M. Cuomo is seeking to cut $59 million from the Aid and Incentives for Municipalities, or AIM, program, which supplies state aid to cities, towns and villages throughout New York.

Locally, nine municipalities would lose a total of $333,401 in state funding—and elected officials are not happy.

The proposal calls for cutting the program’s funds by about 8.3 percent, from $715 million to $656 million, and removing municipalities that were expected to receive program funding that covered less than 2 percent of their 2017 fiscal year expenditures.

Under those terms, every municipality on the South Fork would be removed from the program, which includes both Southampton and East Hampton towns and every village within them. The only exception is the Village of Sagaponack—which is not currently included in the program.

The local funding cuts range from $2,940 to $184,491 per governing body, according to official state documents.

The Town of Southampton would lose $184,491, while East Hampton Town would lose $71,707. The villages would lose funds ranging from $2,940 in North Haven to $23,284 in Southampton. East Hampton Village would lose $14,828; Sag Harbor, $13,532; Westhampton Beach, $11,593; Quogue, $5,205; and West Hampton Dunes, $5,821.

The AIM program has provided state aid to these municipalities since it was implemented in the 2006 fiscal year budget.

Assemblyman Fred W. Thiele Jr. said in a statement that the cuts would penalize towns and villages that already receive inadequate state funding. Many of these municipalities have already included the anticipated funds in their finalized annual budgets, and not receiving them could result in property tax increases, government employee layoffs and service cuts, he said.

“As lawmakers, we should be examining by how much to rightfully increase funding to localities, which has long been overdue,” Mr. Thiele said. “A reduction of AIM funding is unacceptable.”

If the Albany measure is approved, Southampton Town would have to make up for the loss of the funds, which were anticipated in its general operating budget.

“What’s upsetting about it is it was proposed after we adopted our budget,” Southampton Town Comptroller Len Marchese said. “We have very limited ways of making up that revenue, other than cutting. If it was proposed before, perhaps we would have raised taxes or other things in the budget adoption process.”

Mr. Marchese said that he and the Town Board will be considering options to make up for the loss of revenue, including possibly limiting the number of hired summer staff or raising other forms of revenue.

On January 25, Mr. Thiele and State Senator James Gaughran, chairs of their respective chambers’ Local Government Committees, will hold a rally at Huntington Town Hall calling for the restoration of the AIM funding in the executive budget. A group of bipartisan local government officials plan to join them at the gathering, according to a press release.