A last-minute change to the Cayuga County budget that deepened a cut in funds from the Cayuga Economic Development Agency is prompting the agency to reconsider its economic development plans for 2019.
Just prior to the Cayuga County Legislature’s vote on Tuesday to approve the county’s 2019 operating budget, Legislator Timothy Lattimore, R-Auburn, offered a motion to cut $25,000 from CEDA’s operating budget. A divided Legislature approved the amendment.
Lattimore’s reasoning for the cut that, when combined with an existing $25,000 cut in the preliminary budget, brought CEDA’s budget down by 14.3 percent to $300,000, was that the county is lacking in grant writing capability, he said.
“I’m all for economic development. I think we’re deficient in grant writing. There’s plenty of money out there for water and sewer and economic development things (but) we haven’t put the grants together in order to chase them,” Lattimore said during the meeting Tuesday.
