2022 State of Oswego County

May 12, 2022

2022 State of Oswego County
Good afternoon and welcome. It’s my honor to share with you the 2022 State of Oswego County address. First and foremost, I’d like to start by recognizing and thanking our county government employees across all departments who carry out our mission and serve our residents with professionalism each day. I also want to specifically thank all our department heads for overseeing our outstanding employees and guiding us through another uniquely stressful year.

I’d be remiss not to recognize my fellow legislators and elected officials, including Majority Leader Nate Emmons, Sheriff Don Hilton, Clerk Terry Wilbur, Treasurer Kevin Gardner and District Attorney Greg Oakes. You represent our county well and I’m appreciative of our continued partnership. I also want to thank County Administrator Phil Church, who understands the necessary balance between the county’s obligation to its citizens and the need to deliver services in a cost-effective manner.

Before we get into the state of our county, I want to take a moment to acknowledge our brothers and sisters across the globe fighting for freedom and democracy in Ukraine. Our thoughts are with the men and women who have stayed to fight against an unjust invasion, and the millions forced to flee their homes.

Back here at home, the state of our county is strong. Oswego County and the nation is coming out of an unprecedented two years that presented some of the most significant challenges in recent memory. We saw the spirit of togetherness in our communities shine through as neighbors helped one another through trying times.

I’m proud of the work our county departments did, distributing personal protective equipment, at-home tests and vaccines by the thousands to those who wanted them. Our health, emergency management and many other departments – along with other essential private sector employees and hundreds of community volunteers – helped guide us through the COVID-19 pandemic and ensured that our respective services continued.

Our Health Department answered nearly 40,000 phone calls on the COVID-19 hotline over the last two years and administered almost 23,000 vaccines, including homebound residents and other hard-to-reach populations. They also conducted case investigations and followed up with the tens of thousands of residents who tested positive or were close contacts to those infected.

Those employees should be proud of their work, and I want to thank them for working long hours they put in to protect our residents while dealing with constantly changing directives and guidance from state and federal partners.

It was not just our health department either. We continued to provide meals to our seniors, issue legal documents and licenses, handle solid waste and maintain roadways throughout the past two years as all county departments remained open and served our residents.

We were not always perfect, but county government responded during tough times, continuing to provide essential services, educating residents and helping us move forward despite the threat of a deadly virus.

As we reflect on the struggles of the pandemic years, it is also important that we recognize the continued improvement and growth that occurred under those conditions. Despite the many challenges before us, our sheriff’s department was able to enhance the activities of the drug task force, expand the school resource officer program into two more school districts, and drive an expansion of the Oswego County Regional Police Academy.

The treasurer’s office was also focused on their continuous improvement plan and added new online services to help residents and businesses have enhanced 24/7 access to many of the services and programs they manage. These are but a few examples as each department has its own unique success stories but, suffice it to say, that we found ways to create opportunity from adversity as we stayed focused on our respective missions to serve you.

The county Legislature, for its part, allotted $250,000 to local restaurants through the Restaurant Recovery Program to aid the hardest hit among our small business community and help our residents. The program was a major success, injecting cash into our struggling small business community and providing residents with more than 5,100 vouchers.

To combat worker shortages in the medical field, this Legislature also designated $500,000 for Oswego Health, one of the area’s largest employees and a critical provider of care in our communities. Health care facilities and organizations are facing critical shortages of workers, and the funds will assist Oswego Health in continuing to provide accessible, quality care in Oswego County.

These are the types of meaningful initiatives that will help our businesses get back on their feet and prosper and we expect to present additional support for a wide variety of entities at the June meeting of this body.

It is also appropriate at this time that we thank our business community for their efforts and sacrifices over these last few years. I want to thank them for stepping up to the plate and showing resilience through the pandemic restrictions and shutdowns and before that the economic impacts of lakeshore flooding. These last four years have indeed been trying times and our business community has shown strength throughout and not only survived but thrived in the face of adversity.

The county’s sales tax revenues continued to grow in 2021, increasing almost 5% from the previous year and close to 9% from pre-pandemic levels in 2019. I am also happy to report that so far, these trends appear to be continuing into 2022. Strong sales tax revenues demonstrate the strength of our business community and since they are also paid by visitors, they help soften the local tax burden on our residents. 

We must ensure that we’re ready as a community to continue this momentum and move on from the challenges and losses of the past several years into a new era of prosperity.

The pandemic took a toll on all of us, and while it is important that we learn from the past two years, our leadership team is looking forward not backward. We believe the worst of this crisis and the disruptions to daily life are now behind us. The coronavirus may still be part of our lives, but what matters now is how we move forward. We will stay focused on the future and work to reduce the physical and financial burdens on everyone who chooses to live, work and raise a family here.

As part of those efforts, we must diversify our economy to be more resilient in the face of future challenges. That means improving our infrastructure to help existing businesses grow and make our area a destination for prospective job seekers and creators. We must make it easier for companies to do business in Oswego County and to create more job opportunities that allow our young folks to build a career here and attract new residents. 

As part of the 2022 budget, the Oswego County Legislature created the Office of Strategic Initiatives to help further our economic and infrastructure objectives with the help of more than $20 million in federal pandemic relief funding. Our team has solicited input from stakeholders throughout our communities, including department heads, local municipalities, business leaders, schools and the nonprofit community to determine the best investments in our county’s future.

We are in the process of evaluating potential projects and a plan is expected to be submitted to the Legislature later this year for review and consideration. We have been carefully moving forward with this once-in-a-lifetime opportunity, and plan to make investments that will strengthen our communities for generations in areas such as childcare, affordable and accessible broadband service, and other critical infrastructure.

Our lives rely more and more on web-based services and expanding broadband capabilities to deliver high-speed internet access to more of Oswego County will help us remain competitive on a global scale. Improving our transportation networks as well as upgrading and expanding the water and wastewater systems in the county are also potential measures that have risen to the top of our priorities.

The COVID-19 pandemic intensified some of the challenges facing our county, and we must come together to confront these issues. Childcare has long been a barrier for many of our moms and dads to enter and remain in the workforce. These last two years have made it clear how big of a challenge it truly is throughout our communities. A lack of available childcare and its high costs, where it is available, force some workers to stay home, so we must find ways to make childcare services more accessible and affordable to bolster our workforce.

Infrastructure is critical to growing our county. It is imperative that we take a comprehensive look at our needs and the ability to address them if we want to be successful in spurring economic development and readying ourselves for the future. Infrastructure projects are expensive and often time consuming, but crumbling infrastructure can deter prospective businesses and residents from moving to an area. We must do what it takes to maintain and improve our infrastructure if we hope to position the county and its job creators for future growth.

Our government must be responsive to our citizens needs while maintaining responsible spending to ensure our communities remain affordable. Our goals have long been, and continue to be, focused on adopting responsible budgets that balance our citizens’ needs and sound fiscal management.

Oswego County’s finances are strong as a result. We weathered the 2008 financial crisis and we’re now overcoming the effects of two years of shutdowns and restrictions. Despite the continued pressure of unfunded mandates and cost-shifting from Albany, our county is on solid financial footing and later this year we will once again, be debt free.

Through the adoption of the 2022 budget, the county Legislature approved a 7% tax cut for our property owners, while also restoring millions of dollars to various reserve funds. That tax cut followed a nearly 3% reduction in the 2021 budget, creating the lowest county tax rate in more than a decade and providing many homeowners and businesses continued savings on their property tax bills.

In addition to cutting taxes, last month the Legislature passed a pair of resolutions that provide partial property tax exemptions to low-income senior households or those with qualifying disabilities. The last two years have shown us the importance of taking care of those in our communities who are vulnerable, and these measures will help make Oswego County more affordable for many on fixed incomes and help ensure they’re able to stay in their homes.

Sound fiscal management has allowed us to make progress in those areas while also making significant investments to county government facilities and services. We will soon begin renovating the Bunner Street facility for our new Public Defender’s Office and we have re-established an in-house Purchasing Department to streamline our procurement in a way that is more responsive to the needs of our departments, vendors and residents.

In addition to a more efficient and productive purchasing department, our County Clerk’s office reported that some hard work and innovation by his staff resulted in a 15% increase in productivity in 2021 and most recently, allowed them to re-open the Fulton branch of the motor vehicle offices.

One of my guiding principles as an elected official has always been to carefully protect taxpayer money, and I believe each and every one of my colleagues on this Legislature feels the same way. On that front, we have been successful, bringing the tax rate down nearly 30% since the early 2000s, from a high of $9.60 per thousand in 2004 to $6.95 in the current year. We’ve done that by carefully balancing the needs of our residents and the cost of doing business here. We will continue our work to reduce the financial burden on our taxpayers while providing critical services.

The best way to reduce costs for future residents is to grow our tax base and create jobs in our communities, and there are opportunities in front of us to do just that. We will work to make strategic, impactful long-term investments in our communities making Oswego County a better place for everyone.

Another major way we have been able to increase our revenue is by attracting more visitors to our county. Despite the pandemic, tourism activity has nearly doubled over the last decade, supporting new jobs and investment in our small business community.

Efforts to establish a National Marine Sanctuary along the shores of Lake Ontario are ongoing and could be nearing completion as soon as later this year – after seven years of hard work from local, state and federal partners. The multi-county effort would preserve the vast underwater historic resources, mostly shipwrecks, that dot the Lake Ontario shoreline without negatively impacting our sportfishing and other recreational assets.

If successful, this would be one of only just over a dozen marine sanctuaries in the world. Such a development should bolster the hospitality and travel industry, bringing thousands more visitors to the area and boosting sales and bed tax revenues across the region.

A similar effort is underway to designate the Fort Ontario military reservation as a National Park. This would help to showcase more than two centuries of military installations and the only World War II refugee shelter in the United States. If realized, this could create synergy with the National Marine Sanctuary and make Oswego County a major tourist destination at a time when we are also seeing increased investments in our downtowns and waterfront areas.

These are the types of big-picture efforts we must and will pursue without forgetting about the natural resources and assets that have powered our county for decades. Our area is rich in history and natural beauty. We have much to offer and we must share our story with others.

One of the darkest points of the past year was the tragedy that occurred in May 2021. The death of 17-year-old Jordan Brooks is a heartbreaking case of child neglect and abuse. Though the arrest of his parents is a testament to the hard work of the men and women in our sheriff’s department, we must examine what happened and do what we can to make Oswego County a safer place for our children and other vulnerable residents. We will not forget Jordan’s death and we will do everything in our power to ensure something like this never happens again.

As such, this legislature approved a full investigation of Department of Social Services’ handling of the case to ensure our child protective services are doing everything possible to stop child abuse and neglect. Child abuse occurs far too often in our county, and we must examine the underlying causes of this generational problem and attack it at its roots.

Our review of social services and related systems may or may not reveal concrete solutions to these issues and it may be just the beginning of what could be a long and hard road, but it’s a road we must go down. And we do so with the hope and desire that it will lead us down a path of continuous improvement as we deliver these critical services.

In closing, I would again like to re-emphasize my confidence in this Legislature, the county’s employees, and our department heads. Together, we will continue to provide the people of Oswego County with a responsible, efficient and effective government.

We have much more work to do on the issues facing our county. So, let’s leave here committed to working together and finishing the year strong.

It’s an honor to serve as chairman and I thank you all for the opportunity. I look forward to a positive and productive year.

God bless you all, God bless Oswego County, and God bless the United States of America!

Thank you.

James Weatherup

Chairman of the Oswego County Legislature

2022 State of the County Address 5-12-22 (10a) REV

CHAIRMAN WEATHERUP PRESENTS STATE OF THE COUNTY ADDRESS – Oswego County Legislature Chairman James Weatherup presented his state of the county address at the May meeting of the Legislature. After thanking all County employees and department heads for their commitment to the residents of Oswego County, Chairman Weatherup re-capped County projects, services and finances over the last year. He also discussed areas of focus where the County intends to make improvements to ensure a prosperous future for generations to come.