BY JIMMY LAWTON
North Country This Week

OGDENSBURG – Ogdensburg Mayor Jeffrey M. Skelly has called for a special meeting tonight to consider passage of a sales tax deal from the county. St. Lawrence County Legislature Chairman Joseph Lightfoot says that while the agreement has support from the negotiating team, it might not have enough votes to clear the full board.

According to Lightfoot, the county’s negotiating committee sent over an offer for consideration that would extend the existing sales tax agreement through 2023.

“That was something the committee, not the legislature, sent to them for their negotiating team, not their full council, to review,” Lightfoot said.

Skelly has been working to garner support from towns and villages in an attempt to keep the legislature from reducing the amount of sales tax the county shares with Ogdensburg.

Skelly says he’s negotiating on behalf of the towns and villages that also receive a share of the sales tax, but have no ability to negotiate their shares.

Many counties in New York State do not share their sales tax with towns and villages. Those that do share, do so at a rate of about 30 percent, according to Lightfoot.

He said the county shares significantly more.

“What they got was something for them to take a look at to see if that’s something that they could go along with,” Lightfoot said. “But I’m not sure we’re there yet.”

Lightfoot said that he and others are unsure if they would support the committees’ proposal. Though Lightfoot said that as a committee member he did support sending it to Ogdensburg to review.

Skelly said he was confused by Lightfoot’s comments and was hopeful that the county was in agreement on the offer.

“The county drew this up. They sent this over to us, I guess I’m out of touch on where they are at,” Skelly said.

Skelly said that the 3-year extension has some appeal from Ogdensburg’s point of view because it provides stability as the area recovers from the pandemic.

“I hope we come to this agreement. It’s the wrong time to have a fight. Three years will get us past the devastation of this COVID,” Skelly said. “This is a time to be united as we are fighting off a virus that’s killing hundreds of thousands of people in the United States and hurting our businesses and economy.”

The negotiations between the city and county had been public and heated at times, with Mayor Skelly remaining adamant that Ogdensburg retain its share of the county sale tax.

Sales tax in St. Lawrence County is 8% of the cost of purchases. The state takes half of that and the county collects the other 4% which it then divides between itself and the municipalities in a specific, and perhaps convoluted formula.

Half of the first 3 percent of the 4 percent total received back from the state goes to the county. The other half of the first 3 percent is divided, with 6.4 percent of that going to the City of Ogdensburg and the remaining 43.6 percent divided between the towns and villages.

The remaining 1 percent of the 4 percent total received from the state is divided, with 83.6 percent kept by the county, Ogdensburg getting 6.4 percent and the remaining 10 percent doled out in shares to the towns and villages.

Citing concerns regarding costly state mandates the county had been seeking to reduce the amount of sales tax Ogdensburg receives with hopes of keeping the county economically solvent.

But Skelly has contended that Ogdensburg deserves a large portion of the sales tax due because of the city status. The status forces the city to make the county whole for unpaid property and school taxes. For municipalities with a town rather than city designation, the county must make up that difference.

Ogdensburg City Council will consider the agreement tonight at a special meeting at 5 p.m.

While North Country This Week has not seen the proposal, Lightfoot said there is language in the proposal that would give the city three choices at the end of the agreement.

The city would be able to preempt the county and retain sales tax collected within the city limits, another plan could be reached or the city would need to accept that their share will be determined based on the same criteria as towns and villages.