In this Week's Perspective
- NYSAC analysis of the State Budget
- Important news on Medicaid reimbursement
- Gas tax update
- Celebrate National County Government Month!
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Counties Applaud Historic Budget for Local Governments |
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On behalf of NYSAC President Martha Sauerbrey and the NYSAC Board of Directors, we commend Governor Hochul and State Legislators for passing a historic state budget that delivers on a host of top county priorities, including ending the practice of diverting local sales tax and making significant investments in public health, rural broadband, roads and bridges, veterans and local emergency services.
As the level of government charged with implementing the bulk of state policy at the local level, the State Budget has a major impact on a wide array of county operations including public health, highway maintenance, social services, veterans’ programs, child welfare, departments of aging, and sustainability programs, among other programs and services.
We thank Governor Hochul, Senate Leader Stewart Cousins, and Speaker Heastie, and members of both houses of the legislature for meeting with us throughout this process, listening to our concerns, and responding to the needs of local taxpayers.
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NYSAC Releases SFY 23 County Budget Impact Report |
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The final bills of the $220 Billion State Fiscal Year (SFY) 2023 State Budget passed both houses of the Legislature in the early morning hours of Saturday, April 9, 2022, just over a week after the April 1st start of the fiscal year. Your association has analyzed the SFY 23 Budget and has detailed specific provisions impacting county operations.
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This year’s budget included all our top budget priorities, including the #KeepLocalTaxesLocal campaign to end the diversion of county sales tax for the Aid and Inceptives to Municipalities (AIM) program and the diversion to supplement the states local distressed hospital funding pool.
In addition to these two actions, which combined netted counties $109 million in savings, there were several other provisions of the state budget beneficial to county governments. Some highlights include:
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- Increase of $26 million in aid to Local Health Departments
- $385 million for the new SAM program, the Community Resiliency, Economic Sustainability, and Technology Program.
- Raising the community college funding floor for community colleges at 100 percent of prior year funding. Without this, community colleges would have faced a $81 million loss in formula aid.
- Repeal of the DOT Right-of-Way tax.
- $1.145 billion for expanding broadband services to rural, underserved, and unserved areas of the state.
- $4 million for local boards of elections to comply with new requirements to provide paid postage envelopes when mailing absentee ballots.
- $10 million in gaming revenue loss offsets resulting from the state changing tax rates for commercial gaming facilities.
- Additional $2 million for counties to pay for 18-B attorneys.
- $35 million to support the creation of a 9-8-8 crisis hotline. Without this aid, counties would have been forced to pay for this program.
- $10 million in new funding to support county pretrial and alternatives to incarceration programming.
- $15,000 increase in base aid to support our county veteran service agencies.
- $7.7 million to expand the Joseph P. Dwyer veterans support program statewide.
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Feds Extend COVID Enhanced Medicaid Funding |
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Secretary Becerra extended the national public health emergency for COVID-19 another 90 days, effective April 16th. This means it would end somewhere near the middle of July unless extended again. This extension will provide the state and counties with another quarter of COVID-related eFMAP. The state budget only counted on this funding through June 30th. Pushing it into the next quarter guarantees coverage for the quarter ending September 30th. Each quarter is worth $165 million for the 57 counties ($65M) and NYC ($100M).
Based on how the state tends to pass this along to counties there could be a weekly share adjustment in Medicaid shares in the coming weeks.
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State & Local Gasoline Tax Update |
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As reported, the adopted state budget includes a state gasoline tax holiday effective for 7 months from June 1st though the end of December 2022. The state is suspending two of its gasoline related taxes for a total of 16 cents per gallon. Unlike most counties, the state does not use a percentage of retail price gasoline tax, but rather a static cents per gallon model. There is no requirement for counties to modify their existing local sales tax on motor fuels as part of the enacted budget, but counties have the option to use a cents per gallon model for the taxation of motor fuel under existing law. A county has the ability to set their motor fuel sales tax rate at $2, $3 and $4 multiplied by the local tax rate to establish a cents per gallon amount (the $4 option was added in the adopted budget).
The ability for counties to switch to a cents-per-gallon sales tax methodology can be implemented on flexible timelines and can be repealed at any time by the county. These temporary elections must start and end on state sales tax quarters. Counties interested in modifying their local sales tax methodology for motor fuels must file with the NYS Department of Taxation and Finance. Any county wanting to make this change for the June 1st sales tax quarter must complete their local process and file everything with the state by May 2nd. We strongly encourage counties to reach out to Tax and Finance officials for draft model local laws and important timelines. Counties can always select a future quarter to start any sales tax change on motor fuels if they so desire if current timing and information is insufficient.
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Nationwide and NYS Gasoline Pricing Update |
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The U.S. Energy Information Administration (EIA) released its monthly report on the short-term energy outlook this week. Their assessment includes a caveat that projections are especially volatile given the war in Ukraine and global supply shocks stemming from that conflict. The April report includes more data post Russian invasion of Ukraine, but the EIA nationwide gasoline price projections for all of 2022 remain similar to what they projected last month, down by about 1% on price and expecting more modest growth in consumption for the full year at about 1.3% v. 4.4% projected last month. Rising prices are the primary reason for falling consumption in the EIA model. The April projections still assume overall price increases for all of 2022 will run about 25% higher than in 2021, with an average price of gasoline of about $3.84, and $4.57 for diesel, for the summer driving months (April – September).
Gasoline and diesel motor fuel prices in New York State tend to run about 10 to 15 cents per gallon higher than nationwide averages, with some variance based on the region of the state. Downstate prices over the last several years have averaged slightly below Upstate prices and are currently running about 5.2% lower in 2022. The weekly average prices for gasoline in Upstate New York during 2022 are listed below (these prices are expressed in cents per gallon and include all taxes).
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Budget Extends Option for Hybrid Public Meetings |
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Counties’ ability to hold virtual public meetings had been set to expire this Friday, April 15th when and if the Statewide COVID State of Emergency sunsets. However, the recently passed State Budget contained a provision allowing for the continuation of public body virtual meetings at local option. Here’s what you need to know if your county would like to continue this option going forward is the following:
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A county or town may continue to use virtual meetings in the exact manner as was allowed during the COVID crisis for up to 60 days from the signing of the Budget (April 9th),
- After 60 days, if a county wishes to meet virtually, they must pass a local law or resolution to opt in, and this option will be different than the COVID option and be more restrictive in use as described below,
- Meetings must use videoconferencing, rather than voice-only means,
- The body still needs to meet in person with a minimum number of members present to fulfill the public body's quorum requirement, allowing for some, not all members to meet virtually,
- The local government must also create a set of written procedures, and these must be posted on the website of the public body,
- A member can only be virtual due to extraordinary circumstances, including, but not limited to disability, illness, caregiving responsibilities,
- The public is not required to be allowed to know the place nor allowed into the area that such member is meeting from virtually, and
- Meetings may be allowed to be fully virtual during a Statewide or local State of Emergency going forward.
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Drinking Water Quality Council to Meet on May 2 |
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The New York State Drinking Water Quality Council (DWQC) will hold a meeting on Monday, May 2nd to discuss potential new drinking water regulations for several per-and polyfluoroalkyl substances (PFAS). The Council will consider proposed maximum contaminant levels (MCLs) for four prioritized long-chain PFAS and notification levels for the remaining 19 PFAS identified in recent modifications to Public Health Law. The meeting will be held in person for Council members and is open to the public. For more information on attending the meeting or viewing it via live webcast, visit click here.
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Join the National County Government Month Celebration! |
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All month long NYSAC will be highlighting the ways, large and small, that counties make a difference in the lives of New Yorkers.
As part of the celebration, NYSAC is once again hosting a photo contest encouraging residents and county officials alike to submit photos that showcase the unique beauty of our counties!
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This year's theme is "County Parks and Recreation."
Encourage your community residents to get outside, snap some photos and share with us their favorite county park or recreation spot!
Five winning photographs will be featured in the upcoming issue of the NYSAC News magazine and in the 2023 NYSAC Calendar. Click below for full details and instructions on how to enter!
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Visit our website for more National County Government Month resources, including, a sample proclamation, sample press release, the 101 Ways Counties Serve New Yorkers Factsheet and "Counties Work" game for students.
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Counties Help Create ‘Buzz’ for Donate Life Month |
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This week, in celebration of Donate Life Month, we sat down with Aisha Tater of Donate Life New York State and Saratoga County Clerk Craig Hayner to discuss the urgent need for organ, eye, and tissue donations and how counties are leading the way in signing up donors! |
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Don’t Wait! Register for Finance School Today! |
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Join us May 11-13th at the Sheraton Syracuse University Hotel in Syracuse, New York for the 56th annual Count Finance School!
As usual, we’re teaming up with the Association of County Treasurers and Finance Officers, and the Office of the State Comptroller to provide 16 CPE credits worth of workshops for county finance professionals as well as keynote sessions and other important networking events.
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Training, Webinars, and Awards |
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A CISO’s Guide to Effective Security Awareness Education and Training |
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April 28th, 2022 - 2:00 pm ET
Security awareness education has always been a key component of a comprehensive cybersecurity program. In recent years, phishing emails leading to ransomware breaches have underscored its importance and have led companies to making significant investments in phishing training platforms. However, security professionals are still challenged by the lack of employee participation in training as well delivering training through “un-engaging” media, like PowerPoint presentations.
Join experts as they share visuals and metrics along with key insights to help you improve the effectiveness of your security awareness program.
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DOS Makes CWSSI Funding Available for Projects Submitted but not Completed
The NYS Department of State (DOS) yesterday announced that $4 million is available for County-Wide Shared Services (CWSSI) projects that have been proposed but not completed.
Counties and partner local governments may apply for the funding to implement projects they had previously submitted through CWSSI plans in 2017, 2018, 2019 and 2020, but were not completed. CWSSI projects that previously received state matching funds will be eligible if additional partner governments have been or will be added since receiving the award. Applications will be submitted through the state’s Consolidated Funding Application (CFA) portal and awards may be granted for up to 90% of the project cost. The RFA was released 3/31/22, with questions due 4/22/22 and final applications due 5/20/22 at 4 pm.
DOS will be reaching out to counties with details on eligible projects. This funding is made possible through the reallotment of Local Government Efficiency (LGE) grant funds that were not released as a result of the pandemic.
Get application information here.
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Climate Change and Sustainability Symposium |
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On April 21st, Genesee Community College Foundation is hosting a symposium on climate change an sustainability. The keynote speaker will be Peter Boyd, Lecturer at Yale School of Environment. The panel moderator will be Dr. Benjamin Houlton, Cornell University, Dean of Agriculture and Life Sciences.
Panelists include:
William Careton, Gen Mgr of Solar O&M, Clearway Energy
Andrew March, CEO, Plug Power
Suzanne Hunt, Hunt Country Vineyards
Curt Gooch, Senior Extension Associate, Animal Science, PRO-Dairy
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