ERIE COUNTY, N.Y. — Erie County Executive Mark Poloncarz has released his 2023 budget.
Poloncarz says the budget is meant to get the county back to where it was prior to COVID.
One of the biggest takeaways is his plan to lower property taxes. As he already touted on social media, Poloncarz says his team has fashioned a budget proposal that actually lowers the county's property tax rate to its lowest level in modern history.
That announced rate is $3.92 per $1,000 of assessed value, which is a somewhat tricky figure considering there are some higher home values.
"We continue to offer relief to homeowners," Poloncarz said. "We know inflation is having an impact on our community. They county does not set the assessment in the assessed values for homes and businesses. The cities and the towns do. We can't control the assessments. We can control the property tax rate, and we have lowered the property tax rate significantly."
The $1.8 billion spending plan does boost some spending with 57 new positions for the sheriff's office, especially to deal with jail system overtime and employee fatigue.
"There's burnout that is going on," Poloncarz said. "There are people that are leaving, there are people that are taking long-term FMLA because they do not want to come to work for 16-hour days for four or five days in a row because of mandatory overtime requirements, so we are adding positions to help eliminate that."
There is also $1.8 million more for county libraries as well as more funding for the district attorney's office.
But across the street, opposition legislators are questioning if this is really a tax reduction for struggling homeowners and pledging to look for potential as yet unspecified spending cuts, as sales tax revenue may go up even with a recession and the county may sit on a significant budget surplus.
Minority Leader and Erie County Legislator Joseph Lorigo told reporters: "We've had historic surpluses. Last year we had $175 million surplus. My colleagues and I in the minority tried to work to lower the tax levy by $20 million. Our colleagues across the aisle and the county executive refused to work with us. This year our message is clear: lower the levy, stop the spending."
So now that discussion begins with the legislature in County Hall, which is dominated by the Democratic majority taking up the budget over the next several weeks.