Buffalo, NY (WBEN) As Mayor Chris Scanlon unveiled his 2025-26 budget proposal, two candidates for mayor reacted with criticism to a proposed property tax hike and a hotel bed tax.
Councilmember Rasheed Wyatt says he's not happy about it. "We are pushing the can down the road, as we've normally done. It's simply to me Byron Brown, 2.0 to continue to do these things," says Wyatt. He understands why Scanlon blamed the previous administration for the 8 percent property tax hike, but that will only hurt residents. "The people who are already struggling, and especially with this Trump administration, those things continue to plague us, and it continues to hurt the people who are already hurting. And so I think that again, it's short sighted as usual," notes Wyatt.
Wyatt believes more cuts can be made. "The overtime budget continues to escalate, and those are things the public has said they're rarely against. Crime is not up. Fires are not up, so we shouldn't have as much overtime," notes Wyatt. He also believes the public should have input. "What are some of their priorities? And I don't think we ever have that. I think it's always our priorities," says Wyatt. He says the former administration had so many employees with six figure salaries, and those are things that are unrealistic.
Wyatt is also opposed to the hotel bed tax. "The tourism association has come out and said that that's a mistake, and they're concerned about how it affects tourism in Buffalo. I think that's a simple one. I think anyone with any common sense will understand that that will be a negative impact on us going the opposite way of what we want. We're trying to increase revenue, so we certainly don't want people not to come to the city of Buffalo," says Wyatt.
Garnell Whitfield, Jr. says we are in critical times, and the mayor's budget does not provide long term solutions. "We can't mortgage our future for today. We've done enough of that, and so we need to find solutions that are creative, new sources of revenue," says Whitfield. "We can't keep doing the same thing, raising fines and that on city residents."
Whitfield says he's heard about bed taxes before. "It might bring some income in, but it also creates some challenges, just for the tourist industry and others. So we have to consider all of those things. I'm not sure how that plays out going forward," Whitfield. He says he realizes the impetus is to do a quick fix and address current budget issues. "They have to be addressed. I understand that. But at the same time, we have to not mortgage our future. We have to promote long term investment strategies, long term revenue generators that will help us maintain stability going forward," says Whitfield.
He says he'll present his vision at a later date.
