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Syracuse City Auditor Alexander Marion marked his hundredth day in office Wednesday by announcing the launch of a new Committee on Revenue and Expenses with the goal of finding “innovative ways” to increase city revenue amid ongoing state funding concerns.

While the city has received federal funding through President Joe Biden’s American Rescue Plan, Marion said the relief will run out by 2025. He said the CORE team will aim to find new ways to internally address these financial issues throughout Syracuse.

“Big challenges call for action and creative solutions,” Marion said. “That’s exactly what my office will do to address the fiscal distress facing the city of Syracuse.”

The group, which he plans to appoint “within the coming weeks,” hopes to release a report outlining ways to raise revenue in the city by the end of the year, he said. It will consist of “leading financial and policy experts.”

Marion cited the city’s high poverty rates, persisting racial segregation and rising rent costs as examples of Syracuse’s ongoing financial struggles. While the local governments’ efforts to improve and build more housing will combat some of these issues, he said he believes the city should also address its “existing housing stock.”

In December 2023, Syracuse was ranked second out of large cities across the country for the highest child poverty rates. A few months later, a report from The New York Times revealed that the city had the greatest one-year rent increase — around 22% — among United States cities.

“We’ve seen the headlines. We know the city of Syracuse leads the nation in categories we should not be proud of,” Marion said. “(These housing efforts are) going to make a great difference to the city of Syracuse and contribute to the ongoing work of revitalizing our neighborhoods.”

Earlier this week, Marion met with local government officials and members of the Syracuse Tenants Union to call on Hochul to add Good Cause Eviction legislations — which protect tenants against rent hikes and unwarranted evictions — into the state’s budget. He said he is also working to analyze the city’s data surrounding existing vacant parcels and building code violations.

Throughout his address, Marion also called on New York officials to allocate more funding towards local governments through the state’s Aid and Incentives for Municipalities program — which he said has not risen proportionally to the state budget.

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Since 2012, AIM funding for the city of Syracuse has stagnated at around $71 million annually and has not increased consistently with the rising costs nationally, Marion said. While the New York state budget has increased by 217% since the implementation of AIM, he said the “support from Albany” toward funding municipalities has not similarly grown.

“(Since 2012), the Syracuse city budget has increased (by) nearly 23%. That’s not profligate spending,” Marion said. “There has been (state) money to fund projects like a half-billion dollar renovation of the Belmont racetrack, a new stadium for my dear Buffalo Bills (and) building a now-defunct film studio in DeWitt.”

Introduced in the New York 2005-06 budget, the AIM program allocates funding to cities, towns and other municipalities across the state. When it was first implemented, then-governor George Pataki promised the state would increase the AIM budget by at least $99 million to $160 million each year, Marion said. Former Gov. Andrew Cuomo changed this policy in 2012, keeping the funding at the level of the previous fiscal year.

Syracuse city officials have been working with state legislatures to encourage an increase in funding towards AIM, Marion said. He said he wrote a letter to Gov. Kathy Hochul outlining “legislative proposals” to bring more funding into the program.

State Senator Rachel May also introduced legislation to “rewrite” how the state dedicates resources to local governments, Marion said. He thanked her for contributing to the “serious statewide conversation” about providing financial support to smaller legislative bodies.

In his one hundred days in office, Marion has also conducted several audits of ongoing city processes, such as its parking ticket system and its staffing of the Syracuse Police Department, he said.

In March, the city auditor’s office announced that Syracuse had issued over 62,000 parking tickets in 2023. The report found inconsistencies in the frequency of tickets issued across different times and regions in the city, with some being more commonly targeted than others.

Marion also highlighted his office’s ongoing work to audit the city’s licensing and permitting process. He said he hopes to complete a report reviewing the process by the end of May. The review will present recommendations for facilitating the process such as improving technology to improve user-friendliness.

Both ongoing audits will include “short-and-long-term solutions” to these issues, Marion said.

“When I was sworn in, I talked about Syracuse being a second-chance city, and this was our opportunity to give our city auditor’s office its second chance,” Marion said. “I’m pleased to report, 100 days in, that second chance looks brighter than ever.”

Published on April 11, 2024 at 12:36 am

Contact Julia: jmboehni@syr.edu