Under Onondaga County Executive Ryan McMahon’s proposed 2025 budget, the county would add 10 caseworkers and five assistants to its child protective staff following the deaths of two children whose cases fell through the cracks.
That is just one of McMahon’s proposals in the $1.56 billion budget McMahon unveiled to county legislators Thursday. McMahon’s proposed budget would increase spending by 5.8% while also cutting the property tax rate by 9%.
County legislators will begin their review of the proposed budget on Monday at 9:30 a.m. and review will continue through Sept. 20. If legislators need additional time to review the budget, meetings would be slated on any day in the following week, through Sept. 27.
The legislature will host a public hearing in the legislature chambers on Oct. 3 at 5:30 p.m. before voting on the budget on Oct. 8 at 1 p.m.
“We’re still going to invest in infrastructure,” McMahon said. “We’re still going to make investments in economic development that will help drive more sales tax growth and more jobs.”
In his address to the legislature Thursday, McMahon said the proposed budget for 2025 prioritizes investing millions in child welfare, lowering the property tax rate by 9%, and developing more housing.
The crux of the child welfare investments fund ongoing initiatives that McMahon said address problems created during the Covid-19 pandemic.
McMahon’s boost in funding for child welfare comes after the deaths of Nefertiti Harris and Ashton DeGonzaque, who fell through the cracks of Onondaga County’s child welfare system. The goal of adding the positions is to reduce the administrative burden for current caseworkers, allowing them to spend more time working with families and at-risk children, McMahon said.
The county executive also proposed more funding for the county’s in-school mental health programs and proposed $5.5 million in funding to continue that initiative.
The budget proposal called on the county to use a $4 million grant from the federal government to change how the county cares for children with emotional or and behavioral disorders and developmental disabilities.
McMahon said the grant is an “offshoot” of a program he proposed in 2019 called the Sycamore House, which he said the state declined to fund.
The budget proposal also includes $250,000 for grants for child care centers to fill the increasing demand for child care centers.
In addition to initiatives to care for children, McMahon included $275,000 in his budget for phase two of the county’s housing study. Last year, the county agreed to a contract with czb LLC, the same firm that completed the city’s housing study, to review the county’s housing market.
The money will help identify investments the county should make as it prepares for an influx of workers related to the Micron project and the county’s ongoing housing crisis.
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