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APR 14 - APR 21, 2015

Temporary Positions Should Have Been Budgeted Differently

By Glenn Choolokian

April 14, 2015

It never changes.

The Administration of Mayor Paul A. Dyster continues to spend casino money without a spending plan.

More and more, people are so frustrated that they are tempted to throw up their hands in disgust and walk away.

I witnessed this feeling myself first hand at the last City Council meeting.

The Dyster administration had placed on the agenda a $445,000 funding request for temporary positions using casino funds.
I asked mayor Dyster three questions:

1. Why wasn't this money allocated during the 2015 budget process?

2. During the 2015 budget process I submitted many of these temporary positions to be funded using casino money (so taxes would not be raised) and the mayor denied many of them.

3. What is different now than at budget time, that now you will allow casino funds to be used?

Almost four months have passed since the budget was put in place., Why weren't these $445,000 in funds for temporary positions not brought before the city council one at a time so we could look at them individually instead of as a lump $445,000 package with no detail of who and how many are being hired?

The city council was backed into a corner to vote for this bundle of items because many of these temporary positions provide street and side walk repair, services to our neighborhood parks and many other services to our families.

But many others may not be necessary.

Dyster was in effect circumventing the proper role of the council.

I had made this statement to my council colleague Andy Touma during last year's budget crisis and told Touma that starting in the spring of 2015, the casino money would start to fly through with last minute urgencies of the Dyster administration.

Touma is witnessing this firsthand.

The money is flying out the door as fast as Dyster figures out a way to spend it.

The only way to change things for the better for our families is when the people of Niagara Falls have finally gotten their fill of the lack of quality government and move in a new and different direction. That direction is simple:

It's about OUR families. Not about handouts to a thousand out of town beggars.

The time is coming when the voters of this city can make a choice to end the status quo or continue it for another four years.

 

 

 

 

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