Lackawanna, N.Y. (WBEN) - The Lackawanna City Council passed the city's proposed budget for the Fiscal Year 2024-25 on Thursday night, but lowered the originally proposed tax levy increase of 23.6% to just 4.5% for residents.
Erie County Executive Mark Poloncarz, who was able to allocate over $800,000 for the city, explained how the council was able to rework the numbers.
For the last 36 hours or so I've been working with city officials, the mayor's office, the council, others in finance and law to figure out ways to try to reduce that proposed tax increase. I made recommendations for them to take advantage of in their budget, which they did," Poloncarz stated in an interview with WBEN. "We also found that the county had allocated, through money from legislators Baskin and Gilmore, $400,000 for the city of Lackawanna last year as part of an urban initiatives grant and 400,000 this year. It's $800,000 that was coming to Lackawanna that they did not have as a revenue in their budget. That money has already been approved by the county it just they didn't have it in their budget. That helped reduce the tax rate even more."
Poloncarz later stated that although taxes are still going up, he is happy to see the percentage is much lower than what Mayor Anette Iafallo had originally proposed.
The city's council chambers only allows for 60 people at a time, which left dozens of resident's waiting outside of the building. One resident, who was able to sit in for the meeting, explained why she believes this tax increase is problematic.
"I think there's a lot of frustration because we have a mix of older homeowners who can't afford the increase, and newer homeowners who came here thinking that this would be the best bang for their buck because of our affordable housing," stated the resident. "This is putting them in a situation that creates more hardship than they need as new homeowners. It's very frustrating considering a few months ago, they were told we were in a good fiscal situation."
Mayor Annette Iafallo did not attend the Thursday night meeting.
