Jamestown Mayor Kim Ecklund and Council President Tony Dolce at the City Council work session (March 4, 2024)
The City of Jamestown is calling on New York State to increase municipal aid.
A resolution has been reviewed by City Council requesting that the state legislature raise AIM funding, which has remain unchanged for the last 15 years.
Mayor Kim Ecklund said the largest amount of state funding cities, towns, and villages receive is AIM funding, “So, you want to talk about what inflation has done just in the last four years, three years, go back to 2009 and it’s quite significant. So, not only have costs just gone up, things to plow the streets, salt, asphalt, all those things the costs have escalated. Our aid number is stagnant, very stagnant.”
The city of Jamestown currently receives $4,572,280 each year from the state.
Ecklund said the New York Conference of Mayors put together the resolution for municipalities to sign off on or approve due to Governor Kathy Hochul holding state AIM flat in her proposed 2025 budget.
Council President Tony Dolce noted during the March 4 work session that not only has AIM funding remain flat since 2009, it was also cut in 2009.
Ecklund said former Mayor Sam Teresi was able to get supplemental aid of $1 million starting in 2017 from the state as part of the state’s revenue sharing process, but that funding has now ended.
Leave a Reply