Lt. Gov. Robert Duffy came to town today with a message for Mayor Stephanie Miner: If she doesn’t like Gov. Andrew Cuomo’s plan to spread out pension payments to help distressed cities, she can ask for a financial control board.
The words from Duffy were, in government-speak, a shot across Miner’s bow from one Cuomo deputy to another.
“If this is not sufficient, then I would suggest one viable option she would have is to request a financial control board,” Duffy said. “Mayors have that available to them. They could ask for one…if they still are in a position where they feel they cannot meet their obligations.”
A financial control board would take the city’s budgeting out of the hands of elected officials, including the mayor’s. It’s a last-resort scenario for any mayor, much less one who just launched a re-election campaign for her second term who’s made fixing Syracuse’s shaky finances a core part of her agenda…..
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