Message from Daphne Senator Jordan:

This video was taken late Sunday night when the 2019-20 State Budget was before us, where I explained my vote and outlined how the Senate Democratic Majority was hurting local governments and local taxpayers by permanently eliminating AIM funding for certain towns and villages. Here’s some additional context.

The Aid and Incentives for Municipalities (AIM) program is a state initiative providing $715 million in financial support to cities, towns, and villages outside New York City and is a vital program for local governments. PART PPP of the Revenue Bill (one of the 10 bills that comprise the State Budget) effectively eliminated State paid AIM to 87 percent of towns and villages. The reduction permanently eliminated 1,326 towns and villages (87 percent) from the program, reducing total state payments by $59.2 million. After the proposal advanced by the Senate Democratic Majority, only $8 million (or 1.2 percent of the total amount of $655.8 million in AIM funding) will now go to the state’s towns and villages. The remaining $647 million of the remaining funding (98.8 percent) would be distributed to the state’s cities other than New York City. This budget provision also provided that the $59.2 million cut in AIM to towns and villages would be replaced, by means of a directive, that the State Comptroller withhold from the remaining taxes, penalties, and interest imposed by the County in which the majority of the population of each such town or village resides, and thereupon be transferred by the Comptroller to each such town and village to cover their lost AIM aid cut.

So, in English, what this means is that counties that distribute sales tax and other revenues to the towns and villages within the county will have the AIM amount normally paid for by the State, deducted from the county's revenue receipts by the State Comptroller in order to "restore" AIM. This will leave the counties less sales tax to disperse among their towns and villages. The new internet sales tax receipts will likely not be enough to cover this loss considering the $175 million projected cost of early voting. As you’ll see in my video, I did not support this irresponsible proposal eliminating AIM funding for so many of our towns and villages because it would hurt our local communities and ultimately local taxpayers.