Onondaga County has freed up $30 million from its budget in order to combat a certain revenue deficit due to the COVID-19 pandemic. County Executive Ryan McMahon said they have already frozen $25 million in austerity, and they have enacted a hiring freeze.
McMahon said the county government is doing its part to be fiscally responsible, but they need aid.
“It’s difficult to tell us you have to shut down. We agreed with that decision, but you can’t say everybody has to shut down. But we’re not going to help you when all your revenue goes away,” said McMahon. “Our deficit isn’t because we mismanaged anything, or we don’t run a good ship. We do. We have one of the best credit ratings out of any county in the state. It’s because we got hit by a pandemic.”
He’s hoping the federal government will provide aid to local and state governments with further stimulus packages. Community spread continues to appear as though it’s slowing in Onondaga County. McMahon said the demand for symptomatic testing is down.
“Which should mean that your community spread cases continue to be in this new range that we’re in now,” said McMahon. “But your proactive testing is either picking up asymptomatic folks, which is important because they can still get other people infected. Folks who have mild symptoms, probably not enough to go merit a test, we’re finding.”
There were 35 new cases reported in the county Wednesday, 23 of those from proactive testing. The county is currently handling 296 active cases, and McMahon said over half of them are related to senior living facilities or they are contact cases.
While the data seems to be trending in a positive direction, McMahon said the community continues to be reminded of the virus’s deadly nature. A woman with underlying health conditions in her 80s died of COVID-19, the 30th death in Onondaga County. McMahon said it is likely that we lose more neighbors during the course of the pandemic.
