The road to passing Buffalo’s budget was rocky

On Wednesday evening, the Council approved a modified budget from the one proposed by Mayor Byron W. Brown. The Council meeting began at 2 p.m. and was recessed for hours while lawmakers and the administration continued negotiations. It finally ended at 8:21 p.m. The deadline was 11:59 p.m.

Council members expressed frustration with how negotiations were going, as well as the entire budget process. Some were unhappy with what they saw as a lack of communication with the Brown administration earlier in the process. And a few rejected Brown’s request that the Council pass a local law allowing the city to exceed the state’s 2 percent cap on tax levy increases. Brown’s request came the day before he presented his 2024-25 budget recommendations on May 1.

“These are probably the three worst budgets I’ve ever had to deal with, and I’ve been here when we had Board of Control budgets,” said North District council member Joseph Golombek Jr., about the Buffalo Fiscal Stability Authority, which was created in 2003 to oversee the city’s financial operations.

“It was pretty bad,” he added. “I hope we learn from this.”

Everyone did their job to pass a budget on time, Brown told a group of reporters Thursday.

“The executive proposes a budget. Legislative bodies have the opportunity to review this budget and then there are negotiations and hopefully the budget will pass,” he said.

“I presented my budget,” Brown added. “If the Council then wants to change the budget and try to cut some things in the budget, that’s the Council’s job to do. We negotiated with the Council. We worked with them and the budget they adopted was based on negotiations.

In the end, Brown didn’t get everything he wanted.

The Council approved an approximately $616 million budget that reduced the mayor’s proposed tax levy increase from 9 percent to 7.5 percent, saving homeowners a small amount on their tax bills.

The change in the modified tax levy — which is the total amount of taxes collected — means the city will collect $2.38 million less in property taxes than Brown had proposed.

Under the amended budget adopted by Council, the owner of a $100,000 home will pay $45 more in taxes this fiscal year, reducing Brown’s proposed tax increase by $33.

“This was a difficult budget, probably the most difficult, if not one, of two that I have had to make during my tenure here on the Council,” said Council President Christopher P. Scanlon, who served on the Council for 12 years, representing the South Ward. He was elected president by his colleagues in January.

“For the record, anything that is done at the last minute, trying to be shaken up in this Council, will never happen again,” said angry Fillmore Council member Mitchell P. Nowakowski, who is in his second term.

“I wish we had more time,” said Niagara Council Member David A. Rivera, who had served as Council Majority Leader since 2015 but lost his position in January to Leah Halton- First-year Council member Pope, who represents the Ellicott District.

“Instead of negotiating at the last minute, we could have negotiated a month ago,” he added. “I wish the administration had given us this months before.”

According to the mayor, “everything went as planned.”

“We started communicating before May 1st. The Council meets every two weeks. There is a finance committee (of the Council) that meets. We answer questions from Council members about the budget. There are reports that are coming out,” Brown said.

Members were also frustrated by Brown’s request late last month for the Council to approve rescinding the tax cap.

They felt rushed because the bill needed to pass immediately, meaning it would bypass public debate in committee, lawmakers said. The Council was scheduled to vote on the request on April 30, the day before Brown released his budget proposal.

“This is a very important decision, and we passed it without any conversation or debate,” said University Council member Rasheed NC Wyatt, a vocal and consistent critic of the mayor and his administration, who voted against increasing taxes.

Rivera also voted against rescinding the tax cap “simply because it came to us at the last minute and we really didn’t have a chance to look at it or take advantage of anything we could have gotten.” by requesting additional reductions before approving the cancellation of the tax cap. cap.”

The main reason Golombek voted against exceeding the tax cap was “to protect the taxpayers in my district,” he said.

Wyatt was the only member to vote against the amended budget Wednesday night, but due to a procedural error, his dissent was not recorded because a roll-call vote was not taken, Scanlon said.

Rivera and Golombek voted in favor of the Council’s amended budget because it reduced the tax burden on residents compared to what Brown proposed, they said.

Before the vote, there was some confusion over whether the Council would approve exceeding the tax cap.

Legislators met in executive session with City Attorney Cavette Chambers to discuss “the status of the recently passed local law allowing the City of Buffalo to exceed the state property tax cap of New York,” Scanlon said upon Council’s return. .

“I know some people were wondering if the council was going to meet with its counsel, an executive session,” he said. “That’s the reason why. We just wanted to make sure every dot was marked and T was crossed as it relates to this local law.

However, the Council did not make a motion within the Council to enter a closed session and did not identify the reason, which appears to violate New York State’s open meetings law.

Scanlon told the Buffalo News on Saturday that there was nothing inappropriate about the closed session.

“As the company lawyer explained to me, we can meet with our lawyer that way,” he said.

Brown said all procedures were followed in a timely manner.

“I don’t know what the confusion was. Everything was done according to the proper procedure, within the specified and set deadlines, which is why the Council was able to vote on the budget,” he said.

Still, this year’s budget process has left a sour taste in the mouths of some lawmakers, including Councilmember Zeneta B. Everhart, who was elected to her first term representing Masten’s district in November.

“What happened in those rooms is absurd,” Everhart said. “This Council has approved the budgets year after year. »

“I am angry on behalf of the people of the Masten district,” she said.