quote:The county has had to slash 2,000 jobs and cut services to close a $100 million-plus shortfall in its $1.1 billion budget.
Rather than raise the sales tax, it cut funding for personnel, health clinics, auto bureaus, snowplowing, parks, the arts, school nurses and others services.
At one point, it was possible that zoo animals would become refugees, temporarily shipped off to other zoos for lack of funding. The county came up with the money to keep the animals home.
The City of Buffalo itself is also in dire straits, having cut funding to Police and Fire Departments. Posts: 5422 | Registered: Dec 2001
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We have, but not as bad as folks that live in the city. We live about two blocks out of Buffalo. Our taxes are insanely high for the services provided. Many of our cultural landmarks are suffering from the lack of funding. I'm lucky to have a job with a stable company now, but I lost my last two to businesses that left the area or went bankrupt. Oh, and we had some hospitals that closed or restricted services due to the financial problems.
Posts: 5422 | Registered: Dec 2001
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Farmgirl, it's kind of a (depressing) joke that everybody from Buffalo moves to North Carolina. My Brother in law moved there with his wife, and her brother followed suit.
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There is talk of raising the sales tax as much as another penny.
This article comparing Buffalo and Pittsburgh is a good start on the whys. Highlights:
quote:Compared with Pittsburgh's estimated $60 million budget shortfall, Buffalo's anticipated 2003-04 deficit of $24 million or so seems like the portrait of fiscal health. That gap, historically, has been patched with millions in state aid and by spending the city's reserves.
But this fiscal year, those city reserves are now empty, and the state, which last year sent $68 million Buffalo's way, is virtually tapped out.
"They don't have any more money to throw around," said Andrew Rudnick, one-time chief of the Buffalo Financial Planning Commission and head of the Buffalo Niagara Partnership, the city's de facto chamber of commerce.
"Prior to Sept. 11, Buffalo was receiving extraordinary state aid, an annual bailout. Now, New York can't continue its normal level of state aid, let alone an extraordinary level."
quote:Last year, Buffalo reached a dubious milepost; though it's by far the largest city population-wise in New York's Erie County, its property now has less tax value than the land and buildings in suburban Amherst, 12 miles away and not even half Buffalo's size.
Overall, Buffalo has seen its property value decrease by about $2 billion over the past three years. At least 40 percent of the city's property is tax exempt, an obstacle with which Pittsburgh is familiar.
And Buffalo is nearing the state limit for money it may collect by way of real estate taxes, meaning a property tax increase is out of the question.
Note that this article was written almost 2 years ago. It's been business as usual since. Medicaid is another common cause thats referenced.
quote:Among the findings, PPI says in 2003, Medicaid cost every New York resident $2,112, a figure that is 2.3 times higher than the national average. Reducing the number to twice the national average, the report said, would save the state $5.3 billion.
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