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Budget Negotiations Will Begin in Earnest This Week

By Tony Farina

The negotiations over the 2013 Niagara Falls budget between the mayor and the City Council will get serious this week as lawmakers will present their amended spending plan to Mayor Dyster on Wednesday, Nov. 28, for his consideration.

“Our budget won’t hold surprises, gimmicks or if-come planning that will endanger city finances,” Council Chairman Sam Fruscione told the Reporter, an obvious swipe at the New York Power Authority’s accelerated bail-out plan of $13.45 million that would depend on casino revenue in the future to pay back the spin-up and assure payment of the balance ($22 million) of the annuity owed the city over the next 44 years.

Fruscione said the council has “cut nearly $5 million from the mayor’s proposed [disaster] spending plan,” and has restored services and jobs “while holding the line on both property and business tax increases.” Fruscione added he would need the support of all council members to implement the plan, anticipating possible vetoes to certain cuts from the mayor. The council would need four votes to override any mayoral vetoes.

Fruscione and Councilman Glenn Choolokian met with the mayor recently to discuss the proposed budget and the NYPA spin-up, with Fruscione telling the Reporter on Sunday that he is firmly opposed to taking the aid package as currently structured.
“The terms [of the NYPA deal] are murky, the disparity of the payout unacceptable and the long range implications for future budgets are terrible,”

Fruscione said. “Even if the contract is modified the council cannot consider the agreement until we have a clear idea as to how Mayor Dyster plans to spend the city’s NYPA dollars. A spending plan that doesn’t restore jobs or services or fails to control taxes is something we won’t support…”

Mayor Dyster has called the NYPA spin-up the best possible short-term solution that was available to the ongoing casino payment issue but he has warned that even with the assistance of the NYPA money “difficult decisions will still need to be made” to deal with the fiscal crisis.

The mayor has stated the spin-up will not solve all the city’s problems as “we are still owed $60 million” from the Senecas that has been withheld over the last three years due to the fight between the state and the Seneca Nation over gaming rights, a dispute that is now before an arbitration panel.

So the battle lines have been drawn on how to balance the coming year’s budget and close an estimated $4 million gap between revenues and expenses.

Following Wednesday’s delivery of the council’s amended budget to the mayor, the two sides will likely begin in earnest the process of coming to an agreement over how to close the deficit with the least possible pain to city residents, a goal that both sides would certainly like to achieve.

At a recent public hearing called by Fruscione, there was almost no support from residents to some of the measures proposed in the mayor’s disaster budget, including an 8.3 percent property tax increase. The mayor had delayed presenting his spending plan for 30 days as he sought to minimize the impact of the plan in the face of the loss of casino revenue over the last three years.

 

 

Niagara Falls Reporter www.niagarafallsreporter.com

Nov 27 , 2012