Local leaders trying to restore state funding

Ideas, concerns and a letter to be written. That's what came out of Wednesday's roundtable meeting organized by New York State Assemblymember Monica Wallace who was joined by other local elected officials. The topic? State cuts in Aid and Incentive to Municipalities (AIM) funding. Their plan is to craft a letter for the governor, hoping to restore the proposed, funding cuts.“It’s a significant cut and it’s a cut that municipalities in our community really cannot afford," says Wallace. “The essential services we really upon, we may have to cut back on.”Governor Andrew Cuomo's new 2019-2020 budget proposal calls to remove $60 million worth of AIM funding, roughly $4.5 million of which would be lost for Western New York.“Cities actually have a zero funding cut, it’s just villages and towns who are being asked to bear the brunt of this and I don’t think that’s a fair way to allocate budget tightening throughout the state," says Wallace.