The city of Oneonta Common Council reviewed financial data and findings that the city was in a strong financial state, as well as discussed making budget changes at a special meeting Tuesday, Aug. 12.
Throughout the meeting, Virginia Lee, the city’s finance director, presented 2025 financial highlights, gave an update comparing Oneonta to other cities financially, gave a history of overtime pay from 2020 to 2024 and briefly outlined a few 2026 primary budget parameters.
“We’re giving the council as much information as possible, so they can have educated discussions and informed votes,” Lee said after the meeting.
In the city’s general fund, $20,571,061 was allotted in the 2025 adopted budget, and $22,267,205 in its adjusted budget, Lee said. Some of the increases in the 2025 budget amendments include the $60,000 for the downtown campaign at Muller Plaza and a $47,944 sidewalk replacement.
Lee addressed the city’s sales tax history. She said that the state is going to impose sales tax on short term rentals, which will bring about $2.75 million in to the county. Oneonta would receive 12% of that, Lee said — an additional expected $300,000 in sales tax revenue.
She recommended that the council consider allowing a $500,000 increase in the sales tax budget.
The sales tax paid on cannabis sales also was touched upon. In 2025, the city budgeted $100,000, Lee said, so in 2026, the city could consider raising it a little bit, possibly by about $40,000.
Lee discussed the city’s state aid, and said that Oneonta has received the same amount since 2011 — $2,231,857. In 2024, the city received a temporary additional payment of $259,166 in August of 2024 and will likely receive it again.
Lee shared a statement from a representative from the New York State Conference of Mayors and Municipal Officials, who was unnamed, stating that “cuts at the federal level are going to present some real challenges for the state.”
Next, Lee reviewed economic and demographic comparisons between Oneonta and other cities that had information available on the state comptroller’s website, including Oneida, Norwich and Saratoga Springs, among others. The majority of the data she reviewed came from the state comptroller’s office.
One graph highlighted the percent of households in each city receiving public assistance.
Public assistance comprises both family assistance and safety net assistance. Family assistance can provide cash assistance to eligible families for up to 60 months, Lee added. Safety net provides assistance to people like single adults or couples without children.
“Family assistance is largely funded by the federal government, and the safety net assistance is largely funded by the state government,” Lee said. “The county comprises 74% of the public assistance expenditures. So that is the majority of what that state aid is.”
In 2022, just above 10% of households received public assistance in Oneonta.
Another graph showed that Oneonta had one of the highest median household incomes of the comparable cities — more than $60,000 in 2022 — and one of the lowest unemployment rates — below 4%.
“These statistics are affected by the diversity and fluctuation of our city population,” Lee said. “So because we have the two colleges here, with the population coming and going, and the different people coming into Oneonta to work, that may not necessarily live here, this can fluctuate this graph.”
The city of Oneonta is operating in a surplus, Lee said, of more than $1 million.
She said the city is in a “strong financial position,” and that sales tax is Oneonta’s largest source of revenue. While in most cities and counties, the property tax is bigger than sales tax collected, but in Oneonta, it is the opposite.
Oneonta’s tax levy was one of the lowest in the comparison, Lee said. The slide she projected at the meeting stated that tax levy reports should be analyzed for future financial decision making.
At the conclusion of the presentation, Lee handed out some of the 2026 primary budget parameters to give the council an idea of some of the revenue increases that could possibly be included in the 2026 budget draft.
Some of the potential changes include an additional $40,000 cannabis tax, $30,000 in code enforcement fees and a $400,000 tax levy. The proposed changes add up to $1,293,000 with more to be decided on in the future.
“The next steps of the budget process is the department heads are currently building their requests for 2026 and things like that,” Lee said. “We have to put all those numbers together to come up with an estimate for the 2026 budget. We still have a lot of work to do.”