Village of New Paltz seeks aid to offset costs of hosting a SUNY campus

Village of New Paltz officials are again asking state legislators to provide aid to offset the many costs of hosting a SUNY campus in the community. These costs include, but are not limited to, the need for fire equipment that is only needed on campus, as state land is not subject to local zoning and the buildings are thus taller than anywhere else in the community. More than 13% of all fire calls are from the campus. The presence of the college also informs the size of the town’s police force, and the amount of calls made for aid to the nonprofit New Paltz Rescue Squad. 

This aid has been awarded somewhat regularly starting in 2019, with a two-year “hiatus” in funding 2022-23 when Mike Martucci was the state senator representing New Paltz. Other than those two years, the community has received $300,000 from 2019 through and including 2025, which is shared among those three emergency services. The request now being crafted is for 2026, and it will be for $400,000 to reflect rising costs in all those areas. 

In addition, Mayor Tim Rogers announced that another resolution is being drafted, this one requesting impact aid specifically related to housing impacts on local water and sewer infrastructure. While there are economic benefits to have thousands of college students live in New Paltz, the costs borne by property owners are not directly offset by whatever money is spent by these residents. The mayor gave one example of an impact that was recently discovered: high ammonia levels in the sewage. Ammonia needs to be kept within safe parameters, and while workers “thought we had it under control” over the summer, it rose again once college classes were back in session. Rogers noted that “interesting patterns” in ammonia were correlated to campus activity, with drops during the Thanksgiving and semester breaks. It’s not clear what may have changed in how waste is generated and managed on campus, but it seems to have prompted the mayor to consider this novel idea, of requesting aid to offset housing impacts. Ensuring that housing remains affordable has been a focus for legislators in recent years, and Rogers believes that money to update and expand local infrastructure is an important part of keeping housing affordable in New Paltz. 

Aid of this nature has a political component; it’s been awarded when both legislators for New Paltz were registered Democrats, and it was not when the state senator was a Republican. Trustees are also working on a plan to ask voters about dissolving the village, which if successful would result in $1 million in state aid to the town government every year, purportedly in perpetuity. Asked if such an award could potentially cause state lawmakers to be more reluctant to provide impact aid, the mayor acknowledged that the process is “always political.”