Last year, the Syracuse Common Council slashed Mayor Ben Walsh's proposed budget. Mayor Sharon Owens, then Walsh's deputy mayor, said she plans to get ahead of any trouble before this year's budget cycle begins. Credit: Michelle Gabel | Central Current

Syracuse Mayor Sharon Owens wants the city’s next budget to focus on two of her major campaign priorities: housing and public safety. 

In a wide ranging interview with Central Current, Owens said her first budget as the city’s top executive will focus on “beefing up” the Division of Code Enforcement, as well as redirecting some public safety responsibilities to community service officers.

Owens in early April is expected to submit her budget proposal for the next fiscal year, which begins on July 1. She will deliver her first State of the City speech on Thursday. 

City Hall’s new leader is already taking steps to prevent a repeat of last year’s budget battles between the city’s department heads and the Syracuse Common Council.

Former Mayor Ben Walsh in 2025 proposed a $348 million budget, which the Common Council eventually hewed by $16 million in a contentious saga. In the end, the councilors won out. After Walsh vetoed the council’s cuts to his proposed budget, councilors unanimously voted to override all of the mayor’s vetoes in an action without modern precedent in Syracuse.

Owens said she has so far spoken with Council President Rita Paniagua, Councilor Jimmy Monto and Councilor Corey Williams. They’ve discussed the city administration’s and the council’s budget priorities as they look to fund crucial programs without exhausting the city’s savings.

‘I need that money back — and I want you to double down’

The mayor sees “beefing up” the city’s Division of Code Enforcement as essential to addressing Syracuse’s housing crisis — which Owens said is her biggest priority.

“The most urgent priorities, and I will sound like a broken record, is housing. It is not only building new housing, but addressing the quality of life of people,” Owens said.

The mayor said she will work to get code enforcement whatever resources the department needs, whether that is technology or more manpower. Owens argued most property owners are maintain their properties but members of code enforcement are outnumbered by the property owners who do not. 

Supplying codes enforcement with the funding its leadership requests helps the city advocate for tenants, and empowers tenants to advocate for themselves, she said.

“The council cut $500,000. I need that money back — and I want you to double down,” Owens said. 

During last year’s budget cycle, councilors slashed $600,000 of the $1.6 million in proposed spending. The $1 million budget for codes was still an increase from 2024-25 allotment. The city’s proposed funding would have helped create more roles within the department. 

Walsh last year insisted that the council’s cuts would prevent the city from hiring more code inspectors and expanding investment in third-party reviews of permit applications.

Owens felt that the city had identified a “sweet spot” in funding the codes department. The council’s cuts hurt the city’s permitting process, which had mostly shifted to third-party permitting, Owens said.

The city had shifted to electronic permitting to speed up the permitting process, she said. The permitting process has long drawn the ire of Syracuse developers, who argue the process often delays new housing units from being built. The Walsh administration had hoped to build on this progress last year, but the council’s cuts prevented that investment, Owens said.

‘I want to utilize them better’ 

Owens also hopes to explore offloading some public safety duties from sworn police officers to community service officers, non-sworn employees of the police department.

A police staffing study commissioned by the Common Council previously recommended reassigning some responsibilities from police officers to “CSOs.” The department has tried to civilianize some roles in the police department since the tenure of former Police Chief Kenton Buckner.  

Owens said CSOs could help ease the burden on the police department by assisting in responding to 911 calls and picking up elements of traffic enforcement.

“I want to utilize them better, because they don’t have to be sworn gun carrying officers, but they really can impact the quality of life for reports that we have an online reporting system,” Owens said. “People still want to see a cop. We still want to see you and talk to you and write a report, but maybe our CSOs can do that.”

Transportation and technology oversight

The mayor will also look to persuade the council to fund the creation of two new positions that would oversee transportation and technology — two areas that Owens said continue to grow in significance. 

With more city residents using alternatives to vehicles to get around Syracuse, the transportation and mobility director would be tasked with overseeing the city’s infrastructure and ensuring that the disparate projects throughout the city maintain consideration for walkers, bikers, Veo riders, and bus riders.

City Auditor Alex Marion in November 2024 released a report outlining how Syracuse had fallen behind on implementing pedestrian and biker-friendly infrastructure, along with recommendations to jumpstart implementation to get back in line with the goals established in the Syracuse Bicycle Plan.

“I think the company told us we’re the second largest use city in their whole inventory,” Owens said, “which should not surprise us with our poverty rates. People are looking for economic and more user-ready ways to travel other than walking.”

A technology director position would be tasked with wrangling and overseeing the uses, contract terms, and regulations for the technology used by each city department.

Owens said she will “absolutely” fight to fund this position during the budget talks, as she believes this oversight role is crucial for keeping up to speed with technological advancements, while making sure that residents’ privacy and the city’s interests are protected.

“The capacity of our government has to keep pace with the industry. It’s hard, because they have trillions of dollars in industry, and we have a taxpayer base,” Owens said. “So really building the capacity of our digital services, our cyber security, our law department, so that we bring in a legal mind that has expert expertise in this area.”

The new mayor acknowledged some of her budget requests may represent increases from what the councilors were willing to approve last year, but Owens hopes that diplomacy and an eye to the future can win over her peers on the Common Council.

“Yeah, it’s spending more money, but it’s saving us money in the long run,” Owens said. “What’s the return on investment?”

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Patrick McCarthy is a staff reporter at Central Current covering government and politics. A graduate of Syracuse University’s Maxwell and Newhouse Schools, McCarthy was born and raised in Syracuse and...