Catch up on the week in city and state politics

City payroll released

The 2015 payroll for city of Syracuse employees was released on Monday, according to Syracuse.com. The highest-paid city employee was Fire Chief Paul Linnertz, who made $187,440. He is the only person on the payroll who has a higher base salary than Mayor Stephanie Miner, who made $115,000.

After overtime pay is accounted for, though, Miner earned the 90th highest salary. Twenty-seven firefighters and 62 police officers earned more than her.

In all, employee wages totaled $111,565,069.

Cuomo pushes for merger

New York state Gov. Andrew Cuomo said he expected the governments of the city of Syracuse and Onondaga County to merge when he awarded the region the Upstate Revitalization Initiative (URI) grant, according to Syracuse.com.

In a call with upstate New York newspapers on Monday, Cuomo said the region will have a “serious problem” if the governments do not merge. It was the basis of the grant application, he said.

A spokesman for Miner said she never explicitly agreed to the merger.

Growth in green energy jobs announced

Nine hundred and eighty high-quality jobs have been created through the Cuomo’s Cleantech Business Incubator initiative, the governor announced Tuesday. More than $215 million in private funds have been invested through the initiative and 141 clean energy companies have been supported, according to a press release.

Six incubators are part of the initiative, including the Cleantech Center at CenterState CEO’s The Tech Garden in Syracuse. John Rhodes, the president and CEO of the New York State Energy Research and Development Authority, said the state is planning on providing more competitive funding for the incubators later this year.

Fayetteville in fiscal distress

The Office of the New York State Comptroller released a report on Wednesday outlining the 18 villages in the state that are under fiscal distress, according to Time Warner Cable News. The village of Fayetteville, part of Onondaga County, was categorized under “moderate fiscal stress,” along with Gowanda, Cherry Creek and Akron.

Three villages were deemed under “significant fiscal stress” and 11 were “susceptible” to it. The report used fund balance, out-year budget gaps, recurring expenses and other markers to identify the villages.

Fayetteville was the only location in central New York on the list.