Chautauqua County Legislature discusses 2025 budget (October 23, 2024)
The Chautauqua County Legislature has passed along party lines a budget for 2025 that reduces the tax rate by 21-cents.
The budget passed reflects a Real Property Tax Levy of $73,256,471 which is $164,976 less than what County Executive PJ Wendel had proposed .
The estimated Full Value Rate of the budget is $6.70.
Democratic Legislator Bob Bankowski proposed an amendment to use $2 million of the unassigned fund balance toward the budget, “Now, our unassigned, unobligated fund balance is exceeding $40 million. So, with that being said it would be nice if we could take $2 million of that and still increase our unassigned fund balance by $1 million to make it $38 (million). We give $2 million back toward the tax levy to lower the tax levy to give some substantial tax relief.”
The amendment failed 6 to 13 with all Democrats voting yes in addition to Legislator Fred Johnson. A proposed amendment in 2023 by Democrats to use $1 million of the fund balance to lower taxes also failed.
Democratic Legislator Fred Larson stated he would be voting no on the budget due to the failure of the amendment as well as the fact that he says the Legislature hasn’t been following the County Charter, County Code, and Legislature’s Rules and Regulations in regards to the formation of the county budget. He stated he hoped the Legislature would take the rules more seriously in 2025.
The budget ultimately passed 14 to 5 with all Democrats voting no.
Leave a Reply