BUFFALO, N.Y. — Buffalo Mayor Byron Brown gave his State of the City address Friday morning at the Northland Workforce Training Center where he called for a 4.53% tax increase for this year.
Brown says the proposed tax increase will generate over $6.6 million in annual additional revenue for the city. According to the mayor's office, this would be the second tax increase in the mayor's 16 year tenure.
"Despite this increase, the city's tax rate will be $10.38 per $1,000 for residential properties and $18.34 cents per $1,000 for commercial properties. Still less than half the tax rate our city had when I took office in 2006," Brown said.
In addition, Brown proposed "modest" increases for both the garbage user fee as well as permit and licensing fees. According to Brown, neither fee has increased in four years.
In addition to taxes, Brown outlined a few other topics during his address including public safety, economic development and improvements to the city's Department of Public Works (DPW).
Brown says the city is investing $1.5 million this year in a updated 311 call system. As part of the improvements, the new system will include an "easy to use" interactive app for residents.
As for the proposed DPW improvements, Brown says the best way to improve the efficiency of the department is by creating a new state of the art Public Works campus.
"Today my administration issues an RFP for the purchase of a site to house all our public works operations - including a new animal shelter. This will improve the efficiency and delivery of various public works services," Brown said.
The city also plans on updating its snow fighting fleet. Brown says the proposed budget includes $2.1 million "to continue the modernization of the snow fighting fleet." This would include the addition of roughly 20 new snow fighting pieces of equipment as well as a GPS system to monitor their movement.
"We will achieve our goals by strategically allocating the resources our community needs. My recommended $568 million budget takes into account what we can control as well as the outside factors we can't control like staggering inflation, higher interest rates and higher overall operating expenses."
Brown added that the proposed budget includes $52.5 million of federal stimulus to help offset revenue losses as a result of the COVID-19 pandemic.
2 On Your Side's Ron Plants will have more on this story tonight on WGRZ - Channel 2 News at 5 p.m.