BUFFALO, NY (WKBW) — “Please welcome the Honorable Byron W. Brown,” called the announcer to a big crowd.
Mayor Byron Brown delivered his 2024 State of the City Address and his 2025 City Budget presentation at Shea’s 710 Theatre in downtown Buffalo. The audience was filled with business and community leaders and City Hall employees.
The mayor received a standing ovation for his State of the City speech, but city homeowners might want to take a seat as they learn about a proposed property tax hike of 9 percent.
@MayorByronBrown announces a proposed 9% property tax hike and $30 garbage fee for homeowners and $40 garbage fee for commercial properties. @WKBW https://t.co/baqqy34lla pic.twitter.com/uGH2E12d0a
— Eileen Buckley (@eileenwkbw) May 1, 2024
The mayor announced a $618 million proposed spending plan, seven percent higher than last year's budget.
Mayor Brown says the state of the city is strong, but it faces big challenges and difficult decisions.
“We need additional revenue to fund essential services,” Brown remarked.
The mayor says the city is facing growing costs from inflation and they are experiencing “dramatic increases” in expenses. He told a packed house that costs for employees, pensions, health insurance, and snow removal continue to rise and that is why he's proposing this 9 percent property tax increase that would affect both residents and building owners.
"Let me say, I do not easily make the decision to raise taxes. My record shows I am a fiscal conservative. There are hard decisions to be made in this budget. They are necessary to continue the progress and adapt to the challenges created by climate change, inflation, and the shift in how people have chosen to live and work since the pandemic,” explained Brown.
7 News spoke to some Buffalo Common Council Members who will look to renegotiate the proposed property tax hike.
The mayor is also proposing raising the garbage fee to $30 for homeowners and $40 for commercial property owners.
After his speech, I asked the mayor how he could ask for more from homeowners in a city with high poverty rates.
“There are cities in New York State that have more poverty than Buffalo does, that pay higher taxes than the people of Buffalo does. That have larger budgets than the city of Buffalo has. So, we thought this was critical to protect the services that we provide to our residents to continue to build for the future. As we looked at this very lean budget, there is no fat in this budget. We can't cut our way to prosperity. If we tried to cut things as opposed to continuing the investment. Our city would go in the wrong direction,” Brown replied.
The mayor also announced some positive items including noting Buffalo now has a 137-percent Homicide Solvability rate with cases solved this year and from previous years.
"This year we've had 15 cases that have been cleared by arrests. Those are cases that arrest occurred in this calendar year, going back this year we have cases that we've cleared as far as 2014,” explained Buffalo Police Commissioner Joseph Gramaglia.
The mayor also highlighted a list of projects to improve Buffalo’s east side, create more affordable housing, and a strategic plan to deal with vacant properties.
The city will also be putting in a bid to bring the Sundance Film Festival to the Queen City and that generated a big applause from the audience.
“Sundance has made the decision to get requests for information to look at, you know, do they stay where they are, or do they go someplace else? We think that's a smaller community than ours is. It's got less amenities than ours does. And so, we felt that we were well positioned to be able to get the film festival. One of the people that encouraged me to look at it and our economic development team looked at it was Tom Fontana, who is Emmy award-winning writer originally from Buffalo,” Brown described.
