Dyster Delays Budget, Angry City Lawmakers Left in Dark

The Niagara Falls City Council will have to wait at least two more weeks to take up Mayor Paul Dyster’s expected disaster budget after the mayor stunned lawmakers Monday afternoon by revealing that he was going to miss his charter-required duty of presenting the council with his proposed spending plan Oct. 1 because his administration was still considering options to close an expected $7 million gap.

Council President Sam Fruscione said lawmakers had no warning of the mayor’s decision to delay presentation of the budget and the council was caught completely off guard and left to wonder how it will meet its responsibility of having the budget back in the mayor’s hands by Nov. 1 if it only has two weeks to consider belt-tightening options expected to be needed to balance the budget.

“This puts us under the gun,” Fruscione told the Reporter, “and this is coming while we are getting calls from residents and businesses worried about a tax increase and from city employees worried about their jobs. And we have no answers.”

Council Members Glenn Choolokian and Bob Anderson also expressed their anger at the delay, with Choolokian, a frequent critic of the mayor, saying “he’s kept us in the dark throughout the process and we still don’t know what’s going on. And it looks like we’re only going to have two weeks to deal with it, and that’s a difficult spot to put us in.. It shouldn’t be like this.”

Mayor Dyster told reporters his administration was still working on putting together a spending plan, calling it “a very difficult budget,” but that’s about as far as he would go in explaining the delay.

When asked if he was still hoping for a helping hand from Albany, possibly in the form of a loan or some other aid, the mayor said his office “is in constant contact with the governor’s office and there are still some options [to close the gap] out there,” but he wouldn’t elaborate.

Without any help from Albany, it is almost a certainty that the new budget will have to cut jobs to get into balance since 80 percent of the budget’s expenses are personnel costs. But how many and who are unknown and also still up in the air is how much of a tax increase might be necessary to close the gap which has been reduced from $10 million just a few weeks ago to about $7 million, according to City Hall sources.

Mayor Dyster said the $58 million owed the city under the gaming compact between the state and the Senecas is the major reason for the budget crisis. An arbitration panel is now in place to deal with the stalemate which has caused the Senecas to withhold payments to the state since 2009 for allegedly violating exclusivity terms in the compact by opening casinos at three local racetracks in competition with Indian-run casinos. The panel is not expected to reach any decision for several months at the earliest.

Assemblyman John Ceretto (R-Lewiston) said last week the governor’s office had contacted him about the city’s financial crisis, and an aide to the governor told him the state was looking “for creative ways” to help, with Ceretto hoping that creative ways translates into money. But Ceretto said Monday night he has had no follow up conversations with the governor’s office since last week.