Buffalo, N.Y. (WBEN) - Over the last several months, dating back to the days of the COVID-19 pandemic, residents of Erie County have been able to enjoy a gas tax holiday, exempting any gas tax over $2 a gallon per gallon in Erie County.
However, that gas tax holiday in place is set to expire next Friday, March 1, after a proposal for an extension of the holiday was voted down by a 6-5 vote back in December.
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Since that vote more than two months ago, Erie County Legislator Chris Greene (R) has been in discussions with his fellow members of the Minority caucus, finding ways to try and extend the holiday beyond March 1. However, he anticipates if there was another vote now, it would still be turned down by a similar vote.
If there is a silver lining to this, though, it's Greene believes the rationale behind most of the Democrats cutting off the gas tax holiday extension was concerns with the 2024 budget.
"I happen to believe when you look at the last couple of years' surpluses of closer to $100 million surplus, we do have the money in the budget to provide that relief to the taxpayers of Erie County. So once we roll around to April, I expect to see another healthy surplus. If that's the case, then there will be no justification for not extending it into the summer," said Greene in an interview with WBEN.
As for Erie County Legislator Jeanne Vinal (D), she says one of the reasons why the gas tax holiday vote ended up failing in December was because some in the Majority caucus didn't want to leave an $8 million hole in the budget. That and the fact the gas tax holiday ends on the last day of February, because it's the end of the quarter for sales taxes.
The one Democratic legislator that voted in favor of the extension was Majority Leader Tim Meyers.
Vinal points out that in the months since the extension vote took place, Erie County Executive Mark Poloncarz has proposed an extra $14.5 million that he wanted to be moved from the transfer tax into highway funds.
"Mark Poloncarz, to his credit, he's really turned around the county, as far as fiscally to increase our credit rating quite a bit, and making it so we can get bonding ourselves, it's cheaper than bonding through other things. By doing that, he's always been conservative on the money part of it, and not wanting to be in a place where there wasn't enough money to pay the bills. So he's always been very conservative on that. That was one thing. Since then, now that we have this excess of $14.5 million in the first quarter, even now before the sales tax comes in, now there's an extra $14 million, which is more than that gas tax," explained Vinal in an interview with WBEN.
While one of her fellow legislators did say they want to use the money for county roads, she feels it would be wise to use that extra money to allow for an extension of the gas tax break.
"Our county roads are in the best shape they've been in. So I would look to use that money, in part, for the gas tax," Vinal said. "When you look at our county, the sales tax and transfer tax are both paid county wide, but the most of our county roads aren't in Amherst, none are in Buffalo, very few in Cheektowaga. The roads are in the Southern Tier especially, the second- and third-ring suburbs are the ones that have most of the county roads. That's one issue that would be a perfect source of moving that money into it, because we already know it's excess now. But do we want to use it for roads or that? I would propose to want it to be for the gas tax holiday."
Vinal strongly believes the county should not be taxing any necessities, and she thinks gas is a necessity in Western New York for people to travel for work and other important matters.
As for Greene, he remains cautiously optimistic, saying he'd like to believe the Majority caucus will be open to discussions about re-implementing the gas tax holiday at some point in the coming weeks.
He feels an extension of the gas tax holiday is important, because residents will see an immediate rise of prices at the pump in the range of 5-7 cents per-gallon.
"When you look at what's gone on over the last month, you're starting to see even though we're not really at the point where summer gas prices are really kicking into effect, we're still at the winter gas mix. But what you're going to see is this difference between Erie County and our surrounding counties is just going to get greater as we move into the summer," Greene said.
"If you look at AAA's chart of gas prices, average prices in all the different counties, Erie County, historically, was always red, meaning it was higher than the New York state average. Right now, we're listed as white. We're only a penny above New York State's average. But Niagara County and Genesee County, our surrounding counties, they would be in the blue, meaning they're below New York State's average by about 10 cents cheaper than us. You're gonna see it will probably end up being that Niagara County is going to be an average of 15 cents cheaper than Erie County. And of course, then you end up with the situation of the big users of gasoline - diesel, particularly - those truckers that come through that may have filled up in Erie County may choose to continue down the Thruway and end up filling up in Pennsylvania, where you can cross the border and get gas a little bit cheaper. We might lose money overall."
So what's the message from county legislators for their constituents as they await word on the future of the county gas tax holiday? It's a similar message from both local lawmakers: Make sure your message is heard and received.
"I have plenty of constituents that have reached out to me and asked me to try to continue to provide that type of relief," Greene said. "It's a regressive tax, we've always described it that whether you're the doctor making $700,000 or the nurse or the orderlies making $40,000 or $50,000, especially seasoned one, they're all paying the same amount for their drive to work with the gas tax. This is probably the tax that should be extended when you look to everybody throughout Erie County. So my message would be simple: If you're not happy with gas prices going up, reach out to your legislator and let them know where you stand."
"I think people should continue to communicate with their electeds, because it's vital," Vinal echoed. "It shouldn't be at the last minute, it should be all the time. On so many issues, I've had people reach out to me on things, and really had me look at something that I didn't consider before. When someone's elected to something, their knowledge might be a lot, but it's limited to their own life experience and their occupation, and everything else. So someone brings up something, it really makes a difference. So instead of being frustrated, people should have sincere discussions with their electeds on it and say, 'This is important to me.'"