New York State Assembly Majority Leader Crystal Peoples-Stokes has questions – a lot of them – about Buffalo mayor Sean Ryan’s proposed property tax levy to offset the city’s budget deficit.
Ryan has stated that his proposed 25-percent levy in the next city budget is needed to address a deficit of up to $109 million, including a $60 million budget gap inherited when he took office in January.
In a four-page letter sent to the Mayor March 24, Peoples-Stokes, who represents Buffalo residents within the 141st Assembly District, says her constituents cannot afford such an increase in the property tax levy.
“We sent off a list of questions and we’ll get some answers to these questions. We'll put our people back together and sit down at the same table with the Comptroller for the City of Buffalo as well, and whoever the principals are in the city council, and come up with some solutions on how we can fix this problem that Buffalo has,” she told BTPM while returning to Buffalo from Albany Thursday. “It's not just a problem for the mayor, it's a problem for all of us.”
Peoples-Stokes' letter raises numerous questions that remain since she met with Ryan last week. Among them, she wants to know how the mayor calculated the $109 million deficit at the start of the city’s new fiscal year, July 1. She also asks how much he intends to increase city spending in the coming fiscal year, and what additional revenue streams he would propose in the next budget.
She also recommends Ryan not try to address the deficit in one fiscal year, but spread it out.
Ryan says a 25-percent property tax levy sounds severe, but for most homeowners it will amount to about $26 per month.
“This is the mess that I've inherited. Somebody else racked up the credit card bills, and now I'm in charge of paying them off,” he said on March 20.
Peoples-Stokes, in her letter, also rejects the idea of including in the state budget a proposal to allow a second round of bonding by the Buffalo Fiscal Stability Authority as a soft board. Mayor Ryan, in a statement issued earlier this year, contends allowing the city’s fiscal control board to do so would “allow the City to amortize potential revenue shortfalls while long-term revenue measures take effect.” But Peoples-Stokes suggests the matter be taken up separately.
“Even as a standalone bill, it’s contrary to what New York State was intending when it implemented that law years ago. It is not to allow you to borrow endlessly without some real checks and balances on how to figure out how to pull yourself back into being upright.” Peoples-Stokes said.
