Tensions boil over at Cheektowaga budget meeting

CHEEKTOWAGA, N.Y. (WIVB) – Tensions were high at a town budget meeting Thursday in Cheektowaga — with the town supervisor and another board member getting into a shouting match.

The proposed budget raises taxes in Cheektowaga for next year. The shouting match erupted over spending and how to cut costs.

“You lied to the people,” claimed Republican council member Michael Jasinski as he got into a heated back and forth with Democratic town supervisor Brian Nowak. Jasinski then agreed that he would love to debate Nowak because, as Jasinski put it, “I’ll have plenty of ammo against you.”

Nowak defeated Jasinski in last year’s election.

Jasinski said off camera that Nowak doesn’t know budget numbers and was stocking shelves before being supervisor.

Next year’s proposed budget raises property taxes by 3.5 percent. Some council members are looking for ways to cut costs. During Thursday’s budget meeting, there was debate over whether to keep $175,000 in a contingency account.

“It’s essentially a contingency line that we’ve appropriated funds for, we’ve not spent against it in 2024 or 2023 and it’s like an insurance and when you just say ‘oh, we’re not going to fund an insurance,’ you put yourself at risk,” Nowak said.

“There’s definitely, a lot of fat in that budget that I definitely can find areas without losing any services or affecting any taxpayer,” Jasinski said.

As for the rest of the budget, Supervisor Nowak says the cost of litigation on the migrant situation in the town has impacted the budget in the past, but won’t impact the budget next year. According to a court order, migrants at two Cheektowaga hotels have to be out by the end of the year.

Other costs associated with the migrants will continue.

“Obviously you have first responders providing our police, responding to some of those calls that are there in terms of fire districts,” Nowak said. “It may have a disproportionate affect there in terms of extra calls they’re responding to.”

Nowak also says the town is expecting much higher costs next year, some due to inflation for recycling, for example.

“We had a contract that we bid out ten years ago that was okay for us in the beginning then became very favorable for the town and a few months back we had to bid this out and enter a five-year contract and our costs went up considerably, nearly double,” Nowak said.

Despite this dust up, the supervisor says a lot of progress has been made on the budget.
More budget hearings in Cheektowaga are scheduled for Friday.

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Jeff Preval is an award-winning anchor and reporter who joined the News 4 team in December 2021. See more of his work here.

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