The Buffalo Common Council has publicly warned taxpayers that the city will be facing a fiscal crisis in 2025 with a budget gap projected to be as high as $55 million.
Nevertheless, Council members are pocketing the pay raises they approved for themselves and other elected officials that kicked in Jan. 1, planning to open a new city gun violence prevention office and talking about the city launching its own ambulance service.
In the past three months, they hired new assistants for Council members and allowed the mayor to hire new staff without publicly voicing objections. And they have resisted raising parking meter rates and entertainment license fees, two revenue generators proposed by Mayor Byron W. Brown’s administration.
Council President Christopher P. Scanlon said this week it will take the Council, the mayor, city comptroller and residents working together to ward off of a financial mess.
“It’s not a matter of whether or not it’s something we can do to overcome this. We have to. There’s no way around it. We have to figure it out,” said Scanlon, who represents the South District.
Tough talk
Council members made similar comments the night of May 22, when they approved an amended 2024-25 fiscal budget that raised the tax levy by 7.5%.
“This tax increase is nothing compared to what is going to happen in the future,” said Niagara Council Member David A. Rivera. “We should have been making these cuts years ago. We kicked the can down the road.”
“The City of Buffalo will be hitting rock bottom if we do not have catastrophic change in revenues,” said Fillmore Council Member Mitchell P. Nowakowski, chairman of the Council’s Finance Committee.
“If we do not realize new or increased revenues in the immediate future, we will be in some sort of financial crisis,” Scanlon said. “And I for one am not going to allow that to happen. So as we wrap up this fiscal year in the next six weeks or so and we…
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