City Auditor Alex Marion in an analysis of the Mayor Ben Walsh’s final proposed budget criticized the mayor’s proposed 2% tax hike.
Walsh proposed the tax increase as the city has struggled to fill a structural deficit in its budget. The mayor’s proposed budget suggested pulling about $27 million from the city’s reserve funds to pay for basic city services.
Marion acknowledged the difficult decisions the city will have to make as American Rescue Plan Act funds — handed out by the federal government to help cities during the Covid-19 pandemic — go away. He argued in the report that the city cannot “cut, tax or borrow” its way to sustainability nor use its reserve fund every year.
“It is equally unfair to the middle-class homeowners and small businesses feeling the squeeze of an affordability crisis to raise taxes when the largest landowners in the City (Syracuse University, SUNY Upstate, Destiny) do not pay taxes,” he wrote.
Marion released his report as the Common Council holds hearings with city departments about the budget. City lawmakers also hired a consultant, The Bonadio Group, to do their own analysis of the city’s budget. The Common Council on May 8 will vote whether to amend and approve the budget.
In an interview with Central Current, Marion said that he disagrees with the decision to raise taxes on residents who are already feeling squeezed, especially as the city is exacerbated by what he called a “tax exempt property crisis,” in which more than 50% of the city’s property is not on the tax rolls.
He did praise the city’s effort to install bus arm and school zone cameras to ticket city residents for traffic infractions. The city projects the tickets will generate $3.7 million in revenue.
Overall, however, Marion believes the mayor’s proposed budget is reasonable.
“I cannot point you to one thing in here that is bloated and needs to go,” Marion said. “There’s not a $5 million solution sitting in this budget.”
Marion takes aim at public safety budgets
Marion chided the fire and police departments for failing to furnish more detailed breakdowns of how their funding is allocated.
Other city departments, Marion wrote, denote their divisions, offices, and bureaus, and document how labor and expenses are used. Without knowing how the departments use their funds, Marion said, it’s difficult to evaluate the departments’ true operational costs.
Marion noted that the police overtime budget is projected to cost $6.5 million, less than the city spent in the 2024 fiscal year and less than it is projected to spend in the 2025 fiscal year. Marion questioned the purpose of budgeting a substantially lower amount than what the department has used. City police have exceeded their overtime budget in all but one year since the 2002 fiscal year.
“I think we just need to do a better job budgeting realistic numbers for that,” Marion said. “… We should not find ourselves year after year in a position where we’ve got to go back and shuffle money around to clear that up.”
Rental registry projections
Marion also called out a discrepancy in the city’s projections for its rental registry inspections.
Walsh’s budget projects the city will perform 2,000 rental registry inspections, which, at $150 per registration, would create $300,000 in revenue. Code Enforcement, though, projected $225,000 in anticipated revenue.
Marion is leery of code enforcement’s projections. Marion pointed out that the costs for the rental registry programs would create a program deficit of nearly $1 million. He argued in a previous report that the city has failed to fully use its rental registry program, finding the city received poor compliance with the program.
Code Enforcement would receive about $6.4 million under Walsh’s proposal, a 34% increase from last year.
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