The Niagara Falls City Council has approved a 2024 budget that raises expenditures by just over $18,000, while also slightly lowering a property tax cut for homeowners and adding to an increase in the business property tax level set in Mayor Robert Restaino’s proposed $101 million spending plan.
The city lawmakers approved 10 out of 30 proposed amendments to the mayor’s budget recommendations. Many of the amendments failed on tied votes because Council Member Traci Bax (R) was absent from Thursday’s budget meeting.
Council Chair David Zajac (R) said Bax was excused from the meeting because she was traveling in connection with her private sector job.
Twenty-eight of the 30 proposed amendments were sponsored by some or all of the council’s current three-member Republican majority. The proposed budget changes mark the first time in Restaino’s tenure as mayor that his spending plan has been subjected to amendments.
The mayor has five business days to either accept or veto some or all of the amendments. Sources close to the administration indicated that vetoes were likely.
Restaino’s proposed budget contained across-the-board projected increases in sales tax revenues while providing a property tax cut for residents, but an increase in property taxes for businesses.
The property tax increase fell below New York’s 2% cap on yearly property tax hikes.
The mayor’s proposed budget also included an allocation from the city’s general fund to help hold the line on the city’s refuse fee by subsidizing an expected increase in the Falls’ contract with Modern Disposal.
The expenses of $101 million were balanced against revenue projections of around $93 million and a transfer of roughly $8 million in tribal revenue funds.
Many of the council’s proposed amendments were identified as efforts to “reduce department spending to lower the tax levy.” Those reductions totaled less than $8,000.
The council increased, by $5,000, its budget line for consultants and voted to create a new part-time position of City Council Clerk at a salary of $18,720. The creation of the clerk’s position was approved unanimously, while Council Member Kenny Tompkins (I) opposed the increased spending for consultants.
Under the mayor’s proposed budget, residential (Homestead) property taxpayers would see a drop in their taxes of 63 cents per $1,000 in assessed valuation. A decrease of 3.1%. The tax rate per $1,000 would fall from $20.00 this year to $19.37 in 2024.
The proposed tax decrease for 2024 breaks a trend of tax increases for residential properties in recent budgets — a 42 cents per $1,000 increase in this year’s budget, an increase of 44 cents per $1,000 in the 2022 spending plan and an increase of 63 cents per $1,000 for 2021.
With the council amendments, residential property taxpayers would see a drop in their taxes of 61 cents per $1,000 in assessed valuation.
The mayor’s proposed 2024 budget would increase business (Non-Homestead) property taxes by 72 cents per $1,000 in assessed valuation. An increase of 1.8%. The tax rate would rise from $39.50 per $1,000 this year to $40.22 in 2024.
With the council-approved amendments the business property taxes would increase by an expected 78 cents per $1,000 in assessed valuation.
The council turned down an amendment to cut the salary of the city’s public information officer by $22,000. On a tie vote, with Zajac and Tomkins opposed and Council Members Vincent Cauley (R) and Donta Myles (D) in favor, an amendment to eliminate the city’s 311 system was defeated.
Cauley argued that the 311 system was “seemingly not productive” and was unnecessary because “the city council is the 311.”
Cauley, Myles and Zajac also approved an amendment that would cut $2,000 from the Falls Police Department’s budget that is used to purchase giveaway items that officers pass out at community events.
An effort to cut $38,000 from a consultants line in the Department of Code Enforcement budget was defeated after council members were told the money pays for services, such as an electrical inspector, that the city is required to provide under state law.
Council members also rejected a series of amendments, sponsored by Cauley, that sought to provide $95,000 in funding to four community organizations. The city ceased providing direct funding to community organizations in its budget roughly five years ago.
Tompkins warned that reversing that policy would “open a can of worms.”
The council also rejected a Cauley proposal that would have cut $46,000 from the payroll line used to open and operate the city’s swimming pools. And members defeated an amendment from Cauley that would have cut $100,000 in funding the city uses to cut grass on vacant and abandoned properties.
Restaino’s spending plan proposes using $18 million from the city’s capital projects budget. That spending would include the reconstruction of 87th Street and a half dozen projects to improve city parks.