"This roundtable is intended to talk about how different municipalities will be impacted by that, so I can take that information back to the governor when I ask him to amend his budget to include and restore the funding to AIM," said Wallace.
She outlined some big-picture numbers for Western New York residents to be aware of.
"Local municipalities in our region, Erie County, stand to lose about $4.5 million collectively," she said. "In my district alone, which is Cheektowaga and Lancaster, which includes the Village of Depew and the Village of Lancaster, collectively it's about $1.3 million. It's a significant cut, and it's a cut that municipalities in our community cannot afford."
Wallace described some of the expenditures that this funding could go toward.
"[Last week's weather> just really highlights the importance of funding to these municipalities who have to deal with extreme weather issues, they need to buy their salt, they need to pay their plow drivers, they need to buy new equipment, they need to fill potholes - all of these expenses cost money," she said. "This state aid is really incentive for municipalities to be fiscally responsible, and that's sort of where the funding started, and to eliminate it is really, in my opinion, a non-starter."