DUNKIRK, N.Y. — Financial clouds of concern are still swirling around Dunkirk City Hall. 2 On Your Side learned more Thursday from Mayor Kate Wdowiasz about the financial challenges.
In the City of Dunkirk in Chautauqua County, like many communities, they're trying to figure out their budget for the year 2025. That may be a very difficult process for city officials considering the city's major deficit. It may also be a costly situation for the over 12,000 people who live there.
Right from the start this potential chilling scenario from Mayor Wdowiasz: "We are looking at various options, but I think there's going to be significant tax increases. Again, that will be reliant on what council wants to do."
Mayor Wdowiasz, who just took office in January, is still coping with a $16 million deficit in its $26 million budget this year. It may stem from past City Hall issues compounded with an aging, declining population and the loss of $3 million each year from its largest taxpayer, which was NRG Energy, and the 2016 state-mandated shutdown of the firm's coal burning power plant.
As the mayor puts it, "It's been at least 12 years of not addressing an issue that could potentially have blown up, which has blown up."
The State of New York did provide some assistance through the state budget with the Dunkirk Fiscal Recovery Act, which carries oversight strings according to the mayor.
"That will give us access to the New York State bond rating, which will give us lower interest bonds to be able to start digging ourselves out of the hole," Wdowiasz said. "Part of that Fiscal Recovery Act means that we have to identify what our actual deficits are, have them certified by the office of the State Comptroller."
But that 2025 city budget must be balanced. It may seem like a mini version of the 2004-05 Erie County red-green budget crisis, with perhaps service cuts for minimal tax hikes or larger tax hikes to keep city services intact.
Wdowiasz says she is "going to be leaning heavily on my council members to give me recommendations regarding department restructuring, what services if any they would like to see cut, what tax increases are gonna look like across the board."
Meanwhile the Dunkirk Mayor will also be handling perhaps difficult upcoming union contract bargaining for city parks and streets staffers, supervisors, and city firefighters.