SYRACUSE, N.Y. -- When it comes to putting Harriet Tubman on the $20 bill, Onondaga County’s top leaders share the same opinion: It’s time.

Syracuse Mayor Ben Walsh and Onondaga County Executive Ryan McMahon decried the decision by President Donald Trump’s administration to delay a plan to replace the image of President Andrew Jackson, who was once a slaveholder, with that of Tubman, a 19th-century slave-turned-abolitionist.

Walsh and McMahon discussed the delay with Syracuse.com | The Post-Standard Wednesday after announcing the winners of the 2019 Harriet Tubman National Freedom Awards on outside of Syracuse City Hall.

“There’s no reason for the delay,” McMahon said. “She should be on the $20 bill.”

Walsh agreed.

“I think it should’ve happened long ago,” he said.

In 2016, President Barack Obama’s administration announced Tubman would replace Jackson on the bill by 2020 to coincide with the 100th anniversary of passage of the 19th Amendment, giving women the right to vote. Tubman, late in life, was active in the suffrage movement.

Then-candidate Trump said the decision to change the $20 was “pure political correctness." At rallies, Trump said he was a big Andrew Jackson fan.

This May, U.S. Treasury Secretary Steve Mnuchin said the new bills wouldn’t be printed until at least 2028. The Treasury Department also removed mention of the Tubman $20 from its website.

Mnuchin cited the need to take extra anti-counterfeiting measures as the reason for the delay, but the New York Times reported that Mnuchin wanted to stall the change until after Trump’s presidency to avoid controversy with the president.

After escaping slavery in 1849, Tubman helped others gain freedom through a network of safe houses known as the Underground Railroad.

During the Civil War, she served as an armed scout and spy for the U.S. Army.

After the war, she settled in Auburn on property she had purchased earlier from then U.S. Senator William H. Seward, who went on to become Secretary of State.

In her later years, Tubman was an activist for women’s suffrage.

She died in her early 90s in 1913 and is buried at Fort Hill Cemetery in Auburn.

Cayuga County is home of the Harriet Tubman National Historical Park. It comprises three properties: the Harriet Tubman Home for the Aged in Auburn; the Harriet Tubman Residence in Fleming) and the Thompson A.M.E. Zion Church in Auburn.

Central New York is proud of its link to Tubman, Walsh said. The mayor said he would use his voice and platform to ensure Tubman is put on the $20 bill.