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Medina Village Board asks state to increase AIM for municipalities

By Tom Rivers, Editor Posted 27 November 2024 at 9:37 am

MEDINA – The state budget approved last April did something that hadn’t been done in 15 years: it increased funding to towns, villages and cities for Aid and Incentives to Municipalities or AIM.

The budget increased AIM by $50 million or 7 percent from the $715 million. The boost mostly went to cities, which get 90 percent of the AIM total.

Little of the AIM funding comes to Orleans County because there isn’t a city in the county.

The Medina Village Board on Monday passed a formal resolution asking the State Legislature and Gov. Kathy Hochul to keep the $50 million increase in AIM, which was presented in April as “Temporary Municipal Assistance.”

Medina also is calling on the state to go beyond the $50 million increase to help municipalities as they wrestle with rising costs of inflation, maintaining infrastructure, providing public safety and other services.

“The Village of Medina urges state officials to recognize the need for a long-term plan that ensures consistent and predictable increases in financial support for local governments that keep pace with inflation,” the Medina resolution states.

The “Temporary Municipal Assistance” gave towns and villages in Orleans County a slight boost in aid.

This list shows what they were getting in AIM in 2023-24, and then the additional funds approved in 2024-25:

Towns

  • Albion, $46,944 plus $3,284
  • Barre, $12,486 plus $873
  • Carlton, $13,680 plus $957
  • Clarendon, $11,416 plus $799
  • Gaines, $21,323 plus $1,492
  • Kendall, $21,299 plus $1,490
  • Murray, $44,677 plus $3,125
  • Ridgeway, $46,273 plus $3,237
  • Shelby, $45,007 plus $3,149
  • Yates, $10,421 plus $729

Villages

  • Albion, $38,811 plus $2,715
  • Holley, $17,786 plus $1,244
  • Lyndonville, $6,251 plus $437
  • Medina, $45,523 plus $3,185

The New York Conference of Mayors, a state-wide association representing cities and villages, is urging municipalities to pass resolutions in support of keeping the $50 million AIM increase and adding more. NYCOM last year said the state should increase the AIM total to $1.1 billion (up from the $765 million) to keep up with the cost of inflation after more than a decade of no increases until last year.