A Closer Look spotlights a story reported by a BTPM NPR reporter that week. In this inaugural episode, BTPM NPR Assistant Managing Editor Ryan Zunner is in conversation with reporter Holly Kirkpatrick. They take a closer look at the City of Buffalo’s budget, which was approved by the Common Council Tuesday with amendments.
The original story on the budget is here.
Ryan: Welcome to A Closer Look here on BTPM NPR, I'm Ryan Zunner. This week we'll be taking a closer look at that City of Buffalo budget, which was just passed on Tuesday. We now bring in reporter Holly Kirkpatrick, who's of course been covering tons of the financial news out of City Hall. Thanks Holly for joining us.
Holly: Hi.
Ryan: And let's jump right into it. Holly, the Buffalo, Common Council voting 6 to 2 to approve Acting Mayor Chris Scanlon's $622 million city budget with suggested amendments. You've been reporting on this budget since Scanlon announced his spending plan on April 8. Why does it matter?
Holly: So a budget really reveals a municipality's priorities as well as the fiscal stability or fiscal health of a town or city. And in this case, the city of Buffalo is, of course, the Queen City, is an anchor point for the region. So when Buffalo is economically stable, it's usually a good thing for the rest of the region.
Ryan: And what's in this particular budget and how is it going to impact city residents?
Holly: So when Acting Mayor Chris Scanlon revealed this budget on April 8, he said that the city was staring down the barrel of a $70 million budget deficit. So there are a lot of revenue generating ideas here. It includes a property tax increase of 8% for city residents, an initiative to establish a Buffalo Parking Authority to usher the sale of four city owned parking ramps and a 3% hotel bed tax, which have both secured state support.
Ryan: And when the mayor presents a city budget right, the council gets it, and they have opportunities to put in amendments to that budget. The Common Council did, I guess, put in a few amendments, but with some caveats there, if you could explain.
Holly: Yeah, so the word amendment in this context, when you think about it, you usually think of an actual change, but here it's actually more like a recommendation. So think of it like a public 'to do' list for the council and the administration. They actually pushed five recommendations. The main one that jumped out to me was to establish a property tax circuit breaker for low income residents. So that's some sort of way to try to offset the 8% property tax hike, and it's for those whose tax liabilities exceed a certain amount of their income. Majority Leader Leah Halton-Pope, though, said that that wouldn't happen this upcoming fiscal year because it actually needs state support.
In terms of actual amendments where they did actually change some of the budget lines, the Common Council reduced the budgeted police and fire over time, but only by small amounts. So for example, the police were budgeted $10.75 million in overtime, and the council reduced that by $200,000.
Ryan: And of course, that was approved 6 to 2, two 'no' votes, this time coming from Rasheed Wyatt of the University District, who's also running for mayor, and David Rivera of the Niagara District. Why did they vote no on this?
Holly: Well, both of them said that the budget basically lent too much on taxpayers. So Rivera actually said, as a councilmember, he took some responsibility for his part in approving past budgets, and here's what he had to say in the council Tuesday.
Rivera [soundbite]: "We can't just point a finger at the previous administration and say he did it. No, he proposed a budget, but we voted on those budgets that he proposed, so we are equally responsible for the mess that we're in today."
Ryan: Alrighty Holly, thank you so much for taking a closer look here at this story about this year's city budget. Thank you so much for joining us today.
Holly: Thank you.
