New York State’s payments to localities – much of it for mandated health, welfare and other services – has grown by less than half the inflation rate during the last decade, the state’s chief fiscal watchdog said Wednesday.

State Comptroller Thomas P. DiNapoli said the slow pace of state, as well as federal, funding to localities has forced them to rely more heavily on local sales taxes and higher property taxes to bring in revenues.

The report comes as a growing number of local governments are facing mounting fiscal pressures.

The comptroller said state payments to local governments grew by $412 million from 2001 to 2011, which is about 1.2 percent annually or less than half the 2.4 percent rate of inflation.

Most of the growth in revenues went primarily to cities through the Aid and Incentives for Municipalities program. He noted, though, that the AIM program has seen reduced or flat funding since 2009, with projections to remain flat through 2016.

But revenues that localities have raised through property taxes during the 10-year period have risen by 4.2 percent on an average annual basis, and sales taxes have grown 5.9 percent annually.

When state and federal aid is included, the growth in payments has increased by an average of 2.2 percent annually, still below the inflation rate.

The federal number is skewed, DiNapoli said, by the one-shot, temporary bailout in the 2009 American Reinvestment and Recovery Act….

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