BUFFALO, N.Y. — Now that Lackawanna City Council has taken action on a new amended city budget plan which originally called for a major tax levy increase, one observer feels there could be similar moves coming from other communities.
A city spokesman says in part Mayor Annette Iafallo originally proposed a 23.6 percent tax levy increase because of overall inflation raising costs for city services, union contract raises, and a loss of 4.3 million dollars in revenue including federal COVID assistance funding which expires the end of the year.
Former Erie County Control Board member, Ken Kruly, says they should have been aware that cash from D.C. would stop flowing by the end of this year. "You're supposed to avoid paying for everyday expenses with those because one time revenues disappear - they're disappearing but the municipalities are now paying the price for not managing that money very well."
While Mayor Iafallo says they didn't want any layoffs of city employees, Kruly feels it puts them in a budget bind. "The only way you really get at a situation like this is to reduce spending by cutting jobs or cutting programs, deferring maintenance which is usually not a good idea. But they're stuck because the easy low hanging fruit is not gonna give much good for them even if the council wants to make some tweaks to the budget."
Originally mentioned in The Buffalo News was the previously proposed salary increases in this budget proposal for the Mayor, Council members, and other city officials. That includes the city attorney who was on track to go from $108,000 in the 2022 budget up to $150,000 now. Kruly says it actually doesn't add that much in the overall 34 million dollar spending plan but "I think that whatever the council does in Lackawanna, they're gonna have to consider what signal they're sending to taxpayers by what they do not only for the department heads, for the Mayor and themselves."
Voters do remember later on, according to Kruly. "We saw evidence of that in West Seneca and Hamburg which just went through budget problems and laid off some people and some board members got defeated in their re-election efforts."
Kruly added, "I've heard of one suburban town that's looking at a significant increase in taxes over the recommended two percent limit. I am not going to mention the name of the town because it's in an early discussion stage, and maybe it will change."
There is currently no response from Albany as to whether the State Comptroller's office might get involved with financial oversight in some of these local government situations that we have seen. They have done it before with municipal audits and in the city of Lockport which in years past had its own major budget issues.