County Legislative Update — July 2026

July legislative update time! I went through July’s resolution packet — here’s what’s happening with your county government this month.

The big one: highway funding

Highway funding just got a serious boost! The Capital Improvement Program for road reconstruction/rehabilitation nearly tripled, jumping from $3.26M to $8.96M, fully bond-financed. This is money for actually fixing the roads people drive on, not just patching potholes as a stopgap.

On top of that, Broome County was awarded $711K in state funding for barriers, edge line marking, enhanced curve signage, and shoulder widening on Lewis Road and Smith-Hill Road.

Good news coming from two directions on this one.

Labor deal

A new 3-year contract for CSEA county workers finally went through — fair raises, Juneteenth added as a holiday, and overdue updates to on-call pay and scheduling at Willow Point. I stand with labor. This is a decent, well-earned contract that gives our workforce some real guarantees over the next few years. I’ll always push for more for workers, but this provides real relief in the meantime.

Updates from last month

Vehicle impoundment law: This passed. After getting more clarification and hearing the Sheriff explain his reasoning, it made more sense to me than it did at first glance. It’ll mostly apply in criminal cases, not routine tows, and the Sheriff can waive or adjust fees for innocent crime victims whose cars get impounded as evidence. I’ll be watching how it’s implemented and will speak up if needed.

Jail communications contract: The ViaPath (formerly Global Tel Link) contract passed. I voted no, along with my four Democratic colleagues. The Sheriff indicated he’d still consider lowering some contested fees, but the contract is in effect as-is. I remain concerned about the underlying commission structure and how it affects the incarcerated and their families. I will keep monitoring it — it’s up for RFP again in about 6 months.

Public safety funding coming in

Grants for HazMat response training and our GIVE program (gun violence prevention through Probation) both renewed.

Workforce development

Renewed a bunch of federal job training grants — Adult, Dislocated Worker, and Youth programs, plus Summer Youth Employment. These help folks get back on their feet and give local kids real work experience.

Local grants

$287K+ going out to fire departments, EMS squads, and youth sports leagues across the county — the stuff that actually holds neighborhoods together. Plus support for the Broome Arts Council, GiGi’s Playhouse, and our Chambers.

Infrastructure

Signal upgrades coming to Colesville Road for safety, bridge repairs on Caldwell Hill, and the airport engineering contract extended through 2027.

On housing and the unhoused

This remains the biggest, hardest issue in front of us. I met with County Executive Garnar this week to dig into it, and I’ll be straight with you: there’s real progress happening — about a dozen housing projects active or in the pipeline right now — but funding and aging water/sewer/electric infrastructure are the honest bottlenecks slowing things down even further. None of these projects fix everything overnight, but they bring units online, which matters.

The county’s RFP for a comprehensive homelessness response overhaul — a critical step away from hotel/motel reliance — closed today. I’ll have more to share as that develops. The full breakdown of what I learned is below, if you want the whole picture.

Thanks for reading. This is the unglamorous work that keeps the county running, and the hard work of trying to fix what’s broken. It’s my honor to serve you, and I stay committed to moving ALL of us forward! ✊️ Please feel free to share this with anyone, and always know you may reach out to me.

~ Tim

The full picture: housing & the unhoused

This is a huge issue — one affecting nearly our entire nation, with a lot of moving parts. It matters to me, and I’m doing what I can to move solutions forward, even as I’m still getting a full grasp on the scope of it. As we approach three weeks since the tragedy at the Knights Inn, I remain focused on real solutions and keeping this issue front and center until we see further results. I also keep in mind those that we lost, and how precious every life is. We must protect each other!

Between my time on the school board and now as your legislator, I’ve seen firsthand how the “cogs of government” work — the number of players involved in a single project, and the never-ending race for funding. It’s one of the most frustrating parts of governance in this country, and lower levels of government usually wait the longest and get the least. There are several local leaders actively working on this, committed to real solutions, regardless of the optics being pushed out.

One thing worth knowing: some municipalities are pro-housing, others aren’t. That directly affects funding and opportunity. If housing matters to you, reach out to your municipal leaders and ask how they’re approaching it locally. The more municipalities that lean into this, the more the County can act — more funding opens up, more land becomes available, more voices get heard.

County Executive Garnar and I met this week, largely to discuss this. I want to be straight with you about what I heard: since he’s taken office, his administration has been more proactive on housing than I’ve seen in years — that’s my honest read, not spin. Active projects right now include Bunn Hill, Vestal Hills, Northside Apartments, 1 North Depot Street, First Ward Gateway, Oakdale Commons, and Confluence Court (wrapping up now), among others. About a dozen more are in the works waiting on funding, and roughly a half dozen beyond that are waiting on developers to commit before funding can even be pursued.

A 2023 county study found we need roughly 6,000 additional units of permanent housing countywide — the administration estimates we’re about a third of the way there. Regardless of where you stand politically, that’s real progress happening in front of us. The hope is that new units let existing units open up, creating more opportunity down the chain. No, none of this solves everything, and much of it doesn’t directly help the unhoused. But it does bring units online, and that’s real progress toward the need.

The honest bottleneck is twofold. First: funding — most flows through competitive state and federal grants with long timelines and real politics attached; that’s the system we’re working within. Second: infrastructure — five years of growth have exposed real capacity and quality problems in our water, sewer, and electric lines, and that’s holding up multiple projects on its own.

I know it’s hard to picture that while we’re all paying outrageous utility costs (I feel that pain too), but much of the county is at or near capacity on these components. Local leaders have had this on their radar for years; funding for it is scarce and ties directly back to which municipalities are willing to participate.

On the ARPA question that’s on a lot of minds: yes, we had deep ARPA funds, and yes, hindsight says some could’ve been spent differently. Some did go toward housing; some had to be spent on specific things; some could’ve gone further for housing. That’s in the past — pointing fingers at it doesn’t build a single unit. Put that energy toward finding solutions, or toward voting. Either way, we move forward.

My own take: affordability matters enormously. For most of our community, it’s the issue behind nearly everything, and I live that struggle too. The first fight is simply having enough viable units to begin with. Pricing and access are the next battle after that — a battle I believe we can win, over time. There’s also active talk about bringing one or more new shelters online. The county’s RFP for a comprehensive homelessness response overhaul — a critical step away from hotel/motel reliance — closed today. I’ll share more as that develops.

I will continue to keep you looped in as I hear anything. Keep positive, stay vigilant, and remember that kindness goes far — especially today.