The Common Council must override Mayor Ben Walsh’s vetoes now to save Syracuse from state oversight in three to five years (“Syracuse lawmakers poised to override mayor’s vetoes, stick with $16M spending cuts,” May 27, 2025). The city of Syracuse no longer has the $123 million windfall from American Rescue Plan Act (ARPA) funds to offset its alarming structural deficit. The 2025 budget brings us back to the pre-Covid-19 reality, where the city was gravitating toward financial insolvency. It is a leadership failure and a betrayal of taxpayers’ trust to defer a $27 million budget deficit to the future. This level of stewardship insensitivity puts the future of our city and families at risk.
The Common Council has forced the administration to reduce overspending and prioritize projects, an issue the administration refuses to address. With a shrinking tax base and expenses outpacing revenues, the city must prepare to do more with less. If Common Councilors have to be the adults in the room to save our city, so be it. The 2025 budget cuts represent a system reset, something the current administration has shown no political will to do.
My vote to override the mayor’s vetoes is the right thing to do, given the unsustainable financial state of the city. At the current rate of structural deficit, our reserves will run out in three to five years. Anyone familiar with our city’s finances knows that since the current administration took office, the budget has grown by over $100 million, while revenue growth has lagged. Continuing this pattern of fiscal mismanagement will sink Syracuse in the coming years. We must make tough decisions now to stabilize our finances, a responsibility the mayor has shifted to the Council…