By Mark Scott
Buffalo, NY – Officials of the Buffalo Fiscal Stability Authority say the city needs to be cautious with its record budget surplus.
City Comptroller Andrew SanFilippo reported this week that the city ended the 2005-2006 fiscal year with a more than $56 million surplus.
But control board director Dorothy Johnson said Wednesday that increasing health care costs and uncertainty surrounding future state aid could have a negative impact on city finances in coming years. And she said city employee unions will have to agree to concessions for the two-and-a-half-year-old wage freeze to be lifted.
"It can't just be here's your raise, and digs us into a deeper hole," Johnson said. "It has to help erase the fiscal crisis.
Late Wednesday afternoon, city unions staged another in their ongoing protests against the wage freeze by picketing outside One M & T Plaza in downtown Buffalo. Control board member Robert Wilmers is chairman of M & T.