BY JIMMY LAWTON
North Country This Week

OGDENSBURG – City Manager Stephen Jellie says the City of Ogdensburg will lose up to $1.5 million in sales tax revenue after the New York State Assembly failed to pass home rule legislation regarding sales tax distribution.

The city plans to begin collecting its own sales tax in 2020, but won’t be able to collect 2.5 percent of the tax generated there without state approval. Instead it will collect just 1.5 percent, that’s a difference of as much as $1.5 million, according to estimates.

“The City of Ogdensburg is disappointed that the NYS Assembly was not able to act on a bill authorizing the collection of an additional 1 percent sales tax to be collected beginning in 2022. We sincerely hope the Assembly will follow the action to approve this bill that was approved by the NYS Senate on Thursday evening. Ogdensburg Mayor Jeffrey M. Skelly and City Council are greatly appreciative of the support and effort from State Senator Patricia Ritchie and her staff in obtaining approval from the NYS Senate. The city is also grateful for the efforts of Assemblyman Mark Walczyk and his staff for efforts to bring this bill to a vote under very difficult political conditions. Ogdensburg looks forward to working closely with both offices to bring this bill to a vote should the state legislature return to Albany for a special session,” Jellie said. “Sales Tax Revenue is a critical component for any community, and that is especially true for rural northern New York communities. The absence of this additional 1 percent sales tax to be collected in the City of Ogdensburg, in lieu of the 1 percent sales tax collected by St. Lawrence County within the city limits Ogdensburg is funding needed to maintain vital life saving and life sustaining services; without it significant reductions in personnel and services will occur in 2022. Recent projections illustrate that failure to pass the home rule legislation requested by the city will result in $1 million to $1.5 million loss of the city’s second highest source of revenue.”

Jellie says the City of Ogdensburg is taking the advice and recommendations of the NYS Financial Restructuring Board very seriously.

“Reorganization of every city department is occurring, the workforce has been reduced over 20 percent and despite passing a 10 percent property tax reduction in 2021, Ogdensburg’s tax rates (city and school) still remain among the highest in the state. Taxpayers simply cannot afford to live here and business cannot afford to thrive here with such high property tax costs,” he said. “The City of Ogdensburg calls on the NYS Assembly to act decisively in the interest of saving the only city in St. Lawrence County and to put aside the partisan political interests that are creating a perilous divide in Albany. The request to grant the City of Ogdensburg is not a Republican or Democratic issue, it is purely an issue of allowing the citizens of Ogdensburg the ability to govern themselves.”