Onondaga County receives $7M sales tax payment; 2020 budget deficit is more than $22M

SYRACUSE, N.Y. — Onondaga County on Thursday received a sales-tax payment of more than $7 million, leaving the sales-tax deficit in the county’s 2020 budget at more than $22 million.

The $7.3 million payment is a “cleanup” payment for the month of August, down more than $460,000 from a year ago, Onondaga County said. This payment and the $37.8 million disbursement the county received Monday, covering the months of August and September, will allow the county to avoid staff cutbacks this month and next.

“Between Monday’s payment [and] today’s payment, we’re not going to have any disruptions to our work force for the months of October or November,” Onondaga County Executive Ryan McMahon said during his coronavirus briefing Thursday at the Oncenter.

The Monday payment reflected a $10.2 million, or 33 percent, increase compared to a similar payment a year ago, which McMahon called “very, very good news.”

The county executive figures that spending from returning college students, back-to-school spending, capital projects, housing projects, and spending at Destiny USA played a role in that nearly $38 million sales-tax payment.