Play Live Radio
Next Up:
0:00
0:00
0:00 0:00
Available On Air Stations

No Drama in Reaching Tentative 10-Year City/County Sales Tax Revenue Sharing Agreement

Scott Willis
/
WAER News

What could have become a contentious, divisive issue has ended with a proposed sales tax agreement that appears to please both city and county leaders. 

"The agreement hasn't changed," said Onondaga County Executive Ryan McMahon.  "We're proposing to extend it another 10 years off of the last year of the existing agreement."  

"It was a very good deal in 2010,  and it's a very good deal in 2018,”  said Syracuse Mayor Ben Walsh.                                     

The deal comes two years early.   Walsh and McMahon say they wanted to get the potentially thorny matter out of the way so they can address issues like poverty and infrastructure.  They’re  sticking with the existing allocation of revenue of 74 percent to the county and 24 percent to the city through the end of 2030.  The remainder goes to school districts.

The 2010 agreement angered town and village leaders, which didn’t…and still don’t receive any revenue.  They’re getting support in other ways.  McMahon was chair of the city council's finance committee when the first deal was struck.  

"This is the type of issue that, if you do it wrong, and you allow partisan politics to get involved, it can divide a community.  There's a lot of work that goes into making sure people realize that this is what's best.  The mayor did a lot of legwork, meeting his suburban partners, building those relationships, building trust. This is a process that hasn't been full of anxiety because of the legwork that's been done." 

McMahon says he and Walsh started talking about the sales tax deal when Walsh was elected, and when he was still legislature chairman.  Walsh was on the periphery of the original agreement as city commissioner of business development.  He says time, and renewed trust, have mostly healed the previous inter-municipal wounds.

"Going back to 2010, it was a very difficult and sometimes divisive process that did drive unnecessary wedges between the city and the surrounding municipalities in the county.  It's taken 8 years for us to mend some of those fences.  We all came to the conclusion that our time would be much better spent focusing on moving all of our communities forward.”          

Walsh says the original agreement put the city on a path to fiscal sustainability, and the extension will keep them moving in that direction.  Both the county legislature and common council have to approve the deal.  The leaders of both bodies say there are some questions, but the agreement otherwise has strong support.  It'll be on the legislature's Ways and Means committee agenda Friday.  It could come up for a vote in the full legislature as early as next week.  The common council likely won’t take it up until next month due to the holidays. 

Scott Willis covers politics, local government, transportation, and arts and culture for WAER. He came to Syracuse from Detroit in 2001, where he began his career in radio as an intern and freelance reporter. Scott is honored and privileged to bring the day’s news and in-depth feature reporting to WAER’s dedicated and generous listeners. You can find him on twitter @swillisWAER and email him at srwillis@syr.edu.