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Onondaga County’s hiring freeze will remain in place through 2021, but the county will not lay off any more employees, a county official said.

County Executive Ryan McMahon announced his proposed budget for the 2021 fiscal year at his annual budget address on Nov. 4. His proposal would allocate $1.25 billion to the county budget, a decrease of $84 million from the previous fiscal year.

The county made these budget cuts in response to the county’s projected loss of over $22 million in sales tax revenue due to the COVID-19 pandemic, McMahon said.

The proposed cuts to the county budget for 2021 will impact several of the county’s departments, said Justin Sayles, the research and communications director for McMahon’s office. But they will most notably affect the county’s capacity to respond to residents’ requests, Sayles said.

The county has cut around 500 employee positions and currently employs less than 2,900 people, Sayles said. Only seven employees were laid off, while about 200 retired after being offered retirement incentives or were voluntarily or involuntarily furloughed.

By reducing the number of county employees, the county saved about $34 million in wages, McMahon said in his address.

But eliminating hundreds of positions has diminished county departments’ capacity to respond to the requests of county residents, Sayles said. At the start of the year, the county planned to hire about 250 people to fill necessary government positions, but the coronavirus pandemic brought their efforts to a halt, he said.

“(Our employees) were already doing more, and now we’re asking them to do more on top of that,” Sayles said. “The demand has increased, and there’s less people to meet that demand because of our budgetary situation.”

The limited staffing will likely increase the amount of time it takes for various county departments to process resident requests, Sayles said.

“We will still provide the services that people deserve and expect, efficiently and in a timely manner,” Sayles said. “But a ‘timely manner’ might mean give us a couple hours as opposed to 30 minutes.”

McMahon’s proposed budget cuts also are partially in response to the limited federal and state aid that Onondaga County received amidst the pandemic, Sayles said. Onondaga County has not received any federal aid since the initial outbreak of the pandemic because the county fails to meet the necessary population threshold to be eligible, he said.

The coronavirus relief bill, a federal economic relief bill signed into law in March, requires local governments to have a population of over 500,000 to receive funding. Onondaga County fell short of that threshold by about 40,000 residents.

While neighboring counties were able to apply for federal aid, Onondaga County had to rely on financial assistance from New York state, Sayles said.

With the state facing its own financial challenges, Sayles said county officials assume that the state will cut its aid to the county by about $20 million during 2021, something McMahon’s proposed budget accounts for. If McMahon’s assumption is incorrect, the county will disperse the extra financial resources to departments that faced budget cuts.

McMahon’s proposed budget also allocates $6.8 million for the county’s pandemic response and recovery efforts, including testing supplies and contact tracing work.

The budget will also provide funding to several social services programs, including the Early Childhood Alliance, which provides early childhood education, and Hire Ground, a community initiative to help employ homeless people. The proposal also grants additional financial resources for daycare programs to provide child care assistance to essential workers, Sayles said.

McMahon’s budget proposals will not be enacted until they are approved by the Onondaga County Legislature or the Common Council, Sayles said. The legislature will meet on Dec. 3 to vote on the budget.

Published on November 18, 2020 at 12:57 am

Contact Gillian: gifollet@syr.edu