NORWICH – For once, the focus in Albany is on upstate, two City of Norwich officials said last week.
While it might not look like it publicly, there’s also a spirit of cooperation amongst the leadership in Albany to work on upstate issues, said City Mayor Joseph Maiurano and Finance Director William Roberts, after attending the New York Conference of Mayors (NYCOM) annual meeting last week in Albany.
“There was more of an eye, a focus on upstate,” said Roberts, referring to the conference. “There used to be in Albany, it appeared, an attitude of ‘out of sight, out of mind.’ It was a total shift from that.”
At the meeting, NYCOM, made up of 584 member governments and 7,000 elected officials, announced its legislative agenda for 2008-09. Maiurano said the city generally follows the guidelines set forth in that policy guidebook.
On Gov. Eliot Spitzer’s Executive Budget, under review by the Legislature and due for vote before April 1, the city supports his call for a $1 billion upstate revitalization fund, scheduled increase in state aid for cities and the creation of new revenue streams through Internet sales.
One negative in Spitzer’s plan: a 3 percent decrease in state highway funding for municipalities, Maiurano said.
As for the actual conference, the mayor said, “There was a strong spirit of cooperation.”
“Everyone across the state realizes that we have to work together,” he added. “That there’s a bigger picture than our own little worlds.”
According to Roberts, a number of state department heads spoke on local government efficiency, property tax relief, brownfield clean-up areas and a number of other major issues facing upstate cities. Local leaders were also able to network with each other to compare and contrast their own cities’ successes and failures.
“The conference was very interactive,” Roberts said. “It was helpful to have that first-hand insight.”
Developing ways to generate revenue while relieving property taxes was a big theme of the meeting, the mayor and Roberts said. They pointed to the governor’s proposal to tax products bought on-line that are delivered to the state as a new idea that could help bolster local governments.
Maiurano said there will also be more grant opportunities to better investigate sharing municipal services with other local governments.
Although feuding publicly, city officials said Spitzer, Senate Majority Leader Joe Bruno and Assembly Majority Leader Sheldon Silver gave an air of cooperation at the NYCOM meeting.
Unless changed by the state Legislature, the city should see a 7 percent increase in state aid for 2008-09. That translates into an added $78,000, bringing the total to $1.147 in revenue the city will get back.
“We’re not getting a handout,” said Maiurano, referring to the aid increase. “We’re getting back money we’ve already sent out.”
Maiurano is also hopeful the final budget will show an increase in highway funding, rather than the 3 percent drop reflected in the budget. The city could also benefit from an increase in reimbursements for plowing about 2 miles of state roads 12 and 23, Roberts said, which haven’t been adjusted in roughly 20 years.