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Elmira Savings Bank to pay quarterly dividend of 15 cents a share on March 12
ELMIRA, N.Y. — The board of directors of Elmira Savings Bank (NASDAQ: ESBK) has declared a quarterly cash dividend of 15 cents a share on its common stock. The Elmira–based banking company will pay the dividend on March 12 to shareholders of record on March 4. Elmira Savings Bank, with $649 million in total assets, […]
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ELMIRA, N.Y. — The board of directors of Elmira Savings Bank (NASDAQ: ESBK) has declared a quarterly cash dividend of 15 cents a share on its common stock.
The Elmira–based banking company will pay the dividend on March 12 to shareholders of record on March 4.
Elmira Savings Bank, with $649 million in total assets, is a state-chartered bank with five branches in Chemung County, three in Tompkins County, two in Steuben County, one branch each in Cayuga County and Schuyler County, and a loan center in Broome County.
Elmira Savings Bank recently reported net income of more than $1.28 million, or 37 cents per share, in the fourth quarter of 2020, up from $940,000, or 27 cents a share, in the same period in 2019. A rise in noninterest income primarily due to increases in the gain on sale of loans, reflecting higher levels of residential mortgages originated for sale to the secondary markets, led the way to the higher profit.
Thomas M. Carr is president and CEO of Elmira Savings Bank.

Northrop Grumman to pay quarterly dividend in mid-March
The board of directors of Northrop Grumman Corp. (NYSE: NOC) recently declared a quarterly dividend of $1.45 per share on the company’s common stock. The Falls Church, Virginia–based defense contractor, which has a facility in Rome, will pay the dividend on March 17. Shareholders of record as of the close of business on March 1
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The board of directors of Northrop Grumman Corp. (NYSE: NOC) recently declared a quarterly dividend of $1.45 per share on the company’s common stock.
The Falls Church, Virginia–based defense contractor, which has a facility in Rome, will pay the dividend on March 17. Shareholders of record as of the close of business on March 1 will receive the payment.
At the company’s current stock price, the dividend yields about 1.95 percent on an annual basis.
Northrop Grumman is a space, aeronautics, defense, and cyberspace company with 97,000 employees globally. It has a local site at the Griffiss Business and Technology Park.

New SUNY program seeks to help EOP students get into its medical schools
SYRACUSE, N.Y. — SUNY wants to help more of its educational opportunity program (EOP) students pursue degrees in its medical schools. EOP serves New York’s “disadvantaged students from underserved communities” and seeks to help them “gain access and succeed” in undergraduate programs. SUNY Chancellor Jim Malatras announced the pre-med opportunity program (Pre-OP) initiative during a
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SYRACUSE, N.Y. — SUNY wants to help more of its educational opportunity program (EOP) students pursue degrees in its medical schools.
EOP serves New York’s “disadvantaged students from underserved communities” and seeks to help them “gain access and succeed” in undergraduate programs.
SUNY Chancellor Jim Malatras announced the pre-med opportunity program (Pre-OP) initiative during a Feb. 18 visit to Upstate Medical University in Syracuse. Pre-OP is part of the Chancellor’s SUNY for All initiative.
Building from SUNY’s EOP along with the medical-pathway programs at SUNY’s Upstate Medical University, University at Buffalo, Downstate Health Sciences University, and Stony Brook University, the SUNY for All Pre-OP will provide academic support, mentorship, clinical exposure, assistance with medical college admission test (MCAT) preparation, academic coaching, and workshops.
The SUNY Pre-OP is set to begin this summer with 25 students, which would be expanded based on initial results and further funding. To be considered for the program, candidates must be a SUNY EOP sophomore or junior on a pre-medical track, have a grade point average of 3.2 or higher, and have successfully completed two semesters of general chemistry and two semesters of biology.
Malatras will convene a group made up of system administration and the SUNY medical schools to lead in designing the program to ensure compliance with the Liaison Committee on Medical Education accrediting body and to help select the students for Pre-OP.
A final plan for the SUNY for All pre-med OP will be provided to Malatras by June before the first Summer 2021 class.
New York closed, pending home sales jump in January
ALBANY, N.Y. — The hot residential-housing market in the state did not cool off in the first month of the new year, despite a lack of inventory. New York realtors sold 11,153 previously owned homes in January, up 16.7 percent from 9,557 homes sold in January 2020. And pending sales in January climbed nearly 23
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ALBANY, N.Y. — The hot residential-housing market in the state did not cool off in the first month of the new year, despite a lack of inventory.
New York realtors sold 11,153 previously owned homes in January, up 16.7 percent from 9,557 homes sold in January 2020. And pending sales in January climbed nearly 23 percent. That’s according to the New York State Association of Realtors (NYSAR)’s January housing-market report issued Feb. 19.
“A robust winter housing market continued into 2021 with both pending and closed sales remaining strong,” NYSAR said in the report.
Sales data
Pending sales totaled 10,588 in January, up 22.9 percent from the 8,612 pending sales posted in the same month in 2020, according to the NYSAR data.
The January 2021 statewide median sales price soared more than 20 percent to $355,000 from $295,000 a year ago.
The months’ supply of homes for sale at the end of January stood at 3.1 months, down about 34 percent from 4.7 months a year earlier. NYSAR says a 6 month to 6.5 month supply is a balanced market.
The number of homes for sale totaled 38,885 in January, down from 53,054 in January 2020.
Central New York data
Realtors in Onondaga County sold 336 previously owned homes in January, up 2.4 percent from the 328 sold in the same month in 2020. The median sales price jumped 12.2 percent to $165,000, from $147,000 a year ago, according to the NYSAR report.
NYSAR also said realtors sold 146 homes in Oneida County in the first month of 2021, up 4.3 percent from 140 in January 2020. The median sales price increased 18.4 percent to $152,740 from $129,000 a year earlier.
Realtors in Broome County sold 134 existing homes in January, up 13.6 percent from 118 a year prior, according to the NYSAR report. The median sales price rose 27.1 percent to $136,000 from $107,000 in the year-ago month.
In Jefferson County, realtors closed on 101 homes in January, up 31.2 percent from 77 in January 2020, and the median sales price of $164,500 was up 33.7 percent from $123,000 a year before, according to the NYSAR data.
All home-sales data is compiled from multiple-listing services in New York state and it includes townhomes and condominiums in addition to existing single-family homes, according to NYSAR.

SBA makes five changes to PPP loan rollout
The U.S. Small Business Administration (SBA) on Feb. 24 started implementing the first of five changes to the Paycheck Protection Program (PPP) that the Biden-Harris Administration says will promote “equitable relief for America’s mom-and-pop businesses.” The PPP is a forgivable-loan initiative that seeks to help small companies survive the economic dislocations of the COVID-19 pandemic. The
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The U.S. Small Business Administration (SBA) on Feb. 24 started implementing the first of five changes to the Paycheck Protection Program (PPP) that the Biden-Harris Administration says will promote “equitable relief for America’s mom-and-pop businesses.”
The PPP is a forgivable-loan initiative that seeks to help small companies survive the economic dislocations of the COVID-19 pandemic. The SBA in January rolled out the third round of the program. As of Feb. 21, more than 1.9 million loans, totaling over $140 billion, had been approved through more than 5,100 lenders nationally in the 2021 round of the program, per SBA data. In New York state, more than 126,000 loans had been approved, totaling more than $11.1 billion, in this latest round.
The five new changes the SBA is going to implement to the PPP are as follows:
• Establish a 14-day, exclusive PPP loan-application period for businesses and nonprofits with fewer than 20 employees;
• Allow sole proprietors, independent contractors, and self-employed individuals to receive more financial support by revising the PPP’s funding formula for these categories of applicants;
• Eliminate an “exclusionary restriction” on PPP access for small-business owners with prior non-fraud felony convictions;
• Remove PPP-access restrictions on small-business owners who have “struggled to make federal student loan payments” by eliminating federal student-loan debt delinquency and default as disqualifiers to participating in the PPP; and
• Ensure access for non-citizen small-business owners who are lawful U.S. residents by clarifying that they may use Individual Taxpayer Identification Number (ITIN) to apply for the PPP.
The 14-day exclusivity period started the morning of Wednesday, Feb. 24, while the other four changes will be implemented by the first week of March, the SBA said.

The February 2021 Zumper National Rent Report found the median rental price for most apartments in the Syracuse metro area was up just over 1 percent compared to the previous month, but up 5 percent from the year-prior month. The median rental price of one-bedroom apartments in the Syracuse region was $840 in the latest month, up
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The February 2021 Zumper National Rent Report found the median rental price for most apartments in the Syracuse metro area was up just over 1 percent compared to the previous month, but up 5 percent from the year-prior month.
The median rental price of one-bedroom apartments in the Syracuse region was $840 in the latest month, up 1.2 percent from $830 a month ago and 5 percent higher than $800 a year earlier, according to Zumper, an apartment-rental listings website.
The median rental rates for two-bedroom units in the area was $970 in the February report, unchanged from the previous month and up 2.1 percent from $950 a year ago.
Syracuse now ranks tied for the 80th most expensive rental market (or tied for 20th least expensive) in the nation of the top 100 markets, per the report.
The Zumper National Rent Report analyzes rental data from more than 1 million active listings across the U.S. The company aggregates the data on a monthly basis to calculate median asking rents for the top 100 metro areas by population.
Onondaga County hotel occupancy rate falls nearly 25 percent in January
SYRACUSE, N.Y. — Hotels in Onondaga County had significantly more vacancies in January than in the year-prior month, as the COVID-19 pandemic continued to stunt the hospitality business, according to a recent report. The hotel occupancy rate (rooms sold as a percentage of rooms available) in the county fell 24.6 percent to 31.4 percent in
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SYRACUSE, N.Y. — Hotels in Onondaga County had significantly more vacancies in January than in the year-prior month, as the COVID-19 pandemic continued to stunt the hospitality business, according to a recent report.
The hotel occupancy rate (rooms sold as a percentage of rooms available) in the county fell 24.6 percent to 31.4 percent in January compared to the year-ago period, according to STR, a Tennessee–based hotel market data and analytics company.
Revenue per available room (RevPar), a key industry gauge that measures how much money hotels are bringing in per available room, plunged 39.2 percent to $23.37 in January from January 2020.
Average daily rate (or ADR), which represents the average rental rate for a sold room, declined 19.4 percent to $74.39 in January from the same month last year.
Oneida County hotels post smallest occupancy drop since pandemic’s start
UTICA , N.Y. — Oneida County’s hotel occupancy rate (rooms sold as a percentage of rooms available) in the county fell 14 percent to 35.8 percent in January, compared to a year prior, according to STR, a Tennessee–based hotel market data and analytics company. The decline was the smallest since the COVID-19 pandemic started last
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UTICA , N.Y. — Oneida County’s hotel occupancy rate (rooms sold as a percentage of rooms available) in the county fell 14 percent to 35.8 percent in January, compared to a year prior, according to STR, a Tennessee–based hotel market data and analytics company.
The decline was the smallest since the COVID-19 pandemic started last March. The average year-over drop in hotel occupancy in the county had been 35 percent over the last 10 months.
Revenue per available room (RevPar), a key industry gauge that measures how much money hotels are bringing in per available room, fell 21.3 percent to $33.23 in this year’s first month, compared to January 2020.
Average daily rate (or ADR), which represents the average rental rate for a sold room, dropped 8.5 percent to $92.93 this January.
Schumer, Gillibrand introduce bill to strengthen unions
New York’s U.S. senators announced they have reintroduced the protecting the Right to Organize (PRO) Act, a measure that would strengthen workers’ rights to organize and bargain for fairer wages, better benefits, and safer workplaces. The pro-union legislation would “bolster” workers’ rights and address the “income inequality crisis that has been exacerbated” by the pandemic, U.S. Senate
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New York’s U.S. senators announced they have reintroduced the protecting the Right to Organize (PRO) Act, a measure that would strengthen workers’ rights to organize and bargain for fairer wages, better benefits, and safer workplaces.
The pro-union legislation would “bolster” workers’ rights and address the “income inequality crisis that has been exacerbated” by the pandemic, U.S. Senate Majority Leader Charles Schumer (D–N.Y.) and U.S. Senator Kirsten Gillibrand (D–N.Y.) contended in a Feb. 19 news release.
The PRO Act seeks to protect workers’ rights by establishing solutions and “implementing safeguards” against violations of workers’ rights by penalizing employers who violate workers’ rights; supporting workers who suffer retaliation for exercising their rights; and authorizing a private right of action for violation of workers’ rights.
The bill would also reinforce workers’ rights to join together and negotiate for better working conditions by providing rights to secondary boycotts, collecting “fair share” fees, modernizing the union election process, and facilitating initial collective-bargaining agreements.
The senators also say the bill would address ambiguous wording that they contend allows employers to misclassify their employees as supervisors and independent contractors.
The U.S. House of Representatives previously passed the PRO Act in February 2020, but the then-Republican-controlled Senate did not take up the measure. The Democrats are now in control of the Senate with a 50-50 breakdown of seats, because Vice President Harris can cast tiebreaking votes.
Business and free-enterprise groups such as the Competitive Enterprise Institute have previously criticized the PRO Act’s proposals as damaging to the economy, workers, and consumers (https://cei.org/onpoint/the-case-against-the-protecting-the-right-to-organize-act/).
New York sweet-corn production declined 17 percent in 2020
New York farms produced an estimated 288 million pounds of sweet corn in 2020, down 17 percent from the 2019 estimate, according to a USDA National Agricultural Statistics Service (NASS) 2020 vegetable production-summary report issued on Feb. 12. The average yield per acre was estimated at 11,500 pounds last year, almost 12 percent below the 2019 average
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New York farms produced an estimated 288 million pounds of sweet corn in 2020, down 17 percent from the 2019 estimate, according to a USDA National Agricultural Statistics Service (NASS) 2020 vegetable production-summary report issued on Feb. 12.
The average yield per acre was estimated at 11,500 pounds last year, almost 12 percent below the 2019 average yield of 13,000 pounds per acre.
Empire State farmers harvested 25,000 acres of sweet corn in 2020, down 6 percent from the year before, according to NASS. The value of production totaled $36.9 million last year, off 9 percent from 2019.
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