County Executive Joanie Mahoney Updates “Consensus Fact Check” Website
Next Topic: State Mandates
ONONDAGA COUNTY- County Executive Joanie Mahoney today released today the next update
for the newly created Consensus Fact Check website. The topic is state mandates and their
impact on the Onondaga County budget.
Unfortunately the trend of purposefully misleading the public with bad or incomplete
information has continued and this time it is the topic of state mandates. When the source of
the misinformation is a public official, it is particularly harmful because it is likely to be accepted
as fact.
County Executive Joanie Mahoney said, “The public deserves the respect of having complete
and accurate information. State mandates are not going up and using them as an excuse for not
figuring out how we can do better on the local level is politics at its worst.”
Mahoney continued, “Taxpayers can see for themselves if they access their own tax bills online.
The web address is www.ocfintax.ongov.net/imate/search.aspx. The very first line on the
County property tax bill is labeled “state mandated costs” and you will see that what
Comptroller continues to say is patently false. Additionally, state mandates account for less
than half of the County budget and are not what is driving property tax bills anymore.”
A breakdown of the effect state mandates have on the Onondaga County budget can be found
online by visiting www.ongov.net/consensus.
County Executive Mahoney continued, “Every dollar we figure out how to save by working
together is one fewer dollar we have to collect property tax for. Pretending otherwise is
irresponsible.”