Heaney: Oversight committee needed to correct Brown’s mismanagement: Investigative Post

The town hall is on the edge of the financial precipice. Mayor Byron Brown and the Common Council have shown that they do not have the courage to make the difficult decisions that await them. Chaos could await us. It’s time for adult supervision.

Reports, analyzes and comments
by Jim Heaney, Investigative Post Editor

Mayor Byron Brown made clear last week that he has no plans to solve the city’s looming budget crisis.

In a interview with Deidre Williams of The Buffalo News, the mayor said that rather than cutting spending, he is seeking increased revenue from the county, state and possibly the federal government to close a projected deficit of at least 41 million dollars for the budget year beginning July 2025.

In fact, the feds have already bailed it out. Over the past three budgets, the city has used $100 million in federal pandemic aid to balance its books. He plans to use at least $30 million more in the fiscal year that begins July 1.

This follows the Mayor and Common Council spending $109 million in reserves since the city’s state-imposed financial control board weakened in 2012. Brown and the Council chose to dip into those reserves rather than raising property taxes to keep pace with increased spending.

Watch the summary of Geoff Kelly’s 2021 budget analysis. This is still true today.

As Williams noted in his article, county and state officials are not receptive to the idea of ​​bailing out City Hall. They said no to the idea of ​​giving the city a greater share of county sales tax revenue and no to a hotel occupancy tax that requires approval from Albany.

The state did provide an additional $5 million in general operating aid for this budget year and next, but it’s the first increase in 12 years. Given the state’s looming budget problems, I don’t expect Albany to increase aid again in the near future. At least not significantly.

The state is already doing more than its fair share to help the city. This year, state aid totals $166.3 million, the second-largest source of revenue in the city’s $617.5 million spending plan, after property taxes.

The school district has long been a state trusteeship. Albany’s $939 million in aid represents the lion’s share of the Buffalo School District’s $1.2 billion budget. The city is only investing $70.7 million. This number has barely changed in decades.

In other words: the state already pays most of the city’s bills. Spending on schools and municipal services totals $1.7 billion; the state covers $1.1 billion.

If I were a state legislator, I would ask City Hall to clean up its own mess.

So here is the situation: the mayor does not want to act. The Council failed to do so, approving budget after budget. The oversight committee failed to use its bully position to pressure city officials to act responsibly. Hell, the governor doesn’t even bother to fill four vacancies on what should be a nine-member panel. It sometimes happens that it cannot meet due to lack of quorum.

My friends, it is time to reimpose a strict control board. The town hall requires adult supervision.

The state imposed a strict board of control in 2003, in response to the last time a mayor pushed the city to the brink of the fiscal precipice. The state then bailed out the city, but empowered the Board of Control to review – and, if necessary, reject – all employment contracts. All expenses over $50,000 had to go through the commission, which imposed a wage and hiring freeze.

His measures, sometimes draconian, were decried by the city’s unions as undemocratic, but they managed to right the fiscal ship and build reserve funds for a city that was on the brink of bankruptcy. In 2012, the control board’s directors voted to give up their strict oversight powers and assume an advisory role.

Brown’s argument against cuts to the current budget is that it would hurt service delivery.

“Who would pick up your trash?” » Brown asked the news.

In fact, the cost of waste collection is supposed to be covered by a separate user fee.

Nearly a third of the city’s total operating budget — 30 percent — is spent on employee benefits, primarily pensions and health insurance. Pensions and health insurance better than those enjoyed by virtually all urban taxpayers.

Another 30 percent of the budget funds the police and fire departments, a result, among other factors, of the fact that the average police officer earns $100,000 a year. Again, much more than the average municipal taxpayer.

On the other hand, little money is set aside to address the city’s deep-rooted problems related to poverty and segregation – housing, public health, community development. For these kinds of programs, the city relies largely on state and county governments — those same entities, Brown says, should bail it out now.

If you look at the city budget, you never know that May 14 happened. Or that hundreds of children continue to be diagnosed with lead poisoning each year.

Look, City Hall has never been a bastion of best practices or smart budget priorities. But mismanagement is approaching a critical point. Brown and the Council need to stop asking for handouts and start helping themselves and the residents they are supposed to serve. If they do not do this, a control committee is needed to do it for them.

published 1 minute ago – June 17, 2024