Cheektowaga tentative town budget

[gorja]

The tentative tax rates


The supervisor noted this is in her letter to the taxpayers


The tax bill may well be lower than the 2010 tax bill but it's higher than 2015's or 2016's.

http://www.tocny.org/Portals/0/Depar...02017-10-2.pdf

[jennifer7]

Anywhere else in country raising taxes is viewed as commiting economic suicide and is considered fiscal irresponsible & mismanagement !!

Also anywhere else in the Country, when Town, Village or City Councils & School Disrict Boards raise property taxes they are voted out of office and there political careers are over.

[jennifer7]

Cheektowaga police officers are the highest paid https://www.empirecenter.org/publications/wtm14-wny/ So wonders Cheektowaga's population has shrunk from 105,000 to 70,000 today. Since the 1980's they have been raising taxes every year & giving the workers yearly raises too for the last 4 decades,

Their lots of lots of people on fixed income struggling now that already having taking out home equity loans & borrowed on the 401k to pay their property taxes & school taxes

[jennifer7]

Cheektowaga police officers are the highest paid https://www.empirecenter.org/publications/wtm14-wny/ So wonders Cheektowaga's population has shrunk from 105,000 to 70,000 today. Since the 1980's they have been raising taxes every year & giving the workers yearly raises too for the last 4 decades,

Their lots of lots of people on fixed income struggling now that already having taking out home equity loans & borrowed on the 401k to pay their property taxes & school taxes

But then again, Cheektowaga has total of 29 Fire Chiefs driving 29 always Brand New Take home Tahoe's loaded with every toy money can buy and 90% of the wear & tear is put on for personal use and the people driving them are not even paramedic's, most have been chiefs for decades too and also work for the town too,

[jennifer7]

Then next year they will raise them again and again and again like they have been doing for the last 4 decades

[WNYresident]

Then next year they will raise them again and again and again like they have been doing for the last 4 decades

Problem is the people who belong to the Cheektowaga Democratic Party ( as another poster has said ) ran our town like drunken sailors. Sad part is factually we have the receipts to prove it.

[Electric Eye]

A couple things on this:

1) Any and all tax increases suck!

2) The Citizen Budget advisory committee recommend $1.9mil in cuts for 2018. ($1.7mil last year) So think of what the increase would be without those included? Deeper reductions were asked for but the majority of the committee voted for lesser cuts and reductions. IMO Had deeper cuts been made the best case scenario would have been zero increase or a very slight decrease of less then 2%. due to the healthcare cost increase of roughly 10% and cost of living increases of 2-3% NONE of the $1.9mil in reductions involve collective bargaining contracts as they are mostly settled or had a proposal already been put on the table before the Committee convened for 2017. However Some recommendations were noted for future negotiations. The committee will convene again in 2018 Call the Supervisors office if you wold like to be part of it.

3) This is in the hands of the town board, they will either accept it as is (highly unlikely) Cut/reduce spending or restore spending or a combination of the 2.

[jennifer7]

Problem is the people who belong to the Cheektowaga Democratic Party ( as another poster has said ) ran our town like drunken sailors. Sad part is factually we have the receipts to prove it.

You don't have to look into the crystal ball to see what Cheektowaga's future is , Just look at what most of Buffalo, Niagara Falls NY, Lackawanna looks like. where you can buy a house for $1, It's already happening, commerical space is worst less & even skyscrapers are worst less. Business as usual, keep raising the taxes every year and keep giving yearly raises to the governement workers, Funny thing is is the that property taxes are already the in highest country & the governemt workers are aleady the highest paid in the country, As more things close up & become vacant , They will say no one shops in stores & malls anymore, LOL, No one builds skyscrapers anymore, and when industry & mfg plants close, they say no ones builds new plants in the country anymore. Funny I see tons & tons of them being built right now, 100's of new power retail centers everywhere and you can see tower cranes in the air no matter where you are.

[WNYresident]

Let's go back to post #4.

The reason this is allowed to happen I'm told is volunteer fire groups can make or break a candidate running for town board.

Think about the hundreds of people involved in the volunteer groups (family or friends) who can push their support to one candidate or another. You give us what we want and we'll support you come election time. Before you know it, seeing the board members are giving the groups "our money" you end up with post #4. You can change out the name of the group but there are many. Just like the group that likes Jack Daniels and White Russian. Keep them liquored up and you'll get your volunteers to carry your petitions.

I totally appreciated what volunteers do and I know others do to. In the end the end though you have to have responsible spending because that tax bills effects people's homes and lives.

It's easy to say if you don't like it move when you know your revenue stream from your town job won't stop no matter how bad an employee you are. You can even be a drug addict, lose your license, not be able to perform your job you were doing and won't be fired. The group with the monopoly of services will force the property owners to keep the person on.

IF I was supervisor I would say sue us. I would let the property owners know we are going to spend money because of it but give them the reason why. The employee is fired because it is clearly not in the best interest of the property owners. Spend 30k to fire them to save millions if the town got sued because the employee hit a school bus and killed someone.

This is why we vote yes on a state convention so we can change some of the rules that have force this on us property owners.

Dan Roman or Electric. True or False to what I just posted.

[WSFirst]

Let's go back to post #4.

The reason this is allowed to happen I'm told is volunteer fire groups can make or break a candidate running for town board.

Think about the hundreds of people involved in the volunteer groups (family or friends) who can push their support to one candidate or another. You give us what we want and we'll support you come election time. Before you know it, seeing the board members are giving the groups "our money" you end up with post #4. You can change out the name of the group but there are many. Just like the group that likes Jack Daniels and White Russian. Keep them liquored up and you'll get your volunteers to carry your petitions.

I totally appreciated what volunteers do and I know others do to. In the end the end though you have to have responsible spending because that tax bills effects people's homes and lives.

It's easy to say if you don't like it move when you know your revenue stream from your town job won't stop no matter how bad an employee you are. You can even be a drug addict, lose your license, not be able to perform your job you were doing and won't be fired. The group with the monopoly of services will force the property owners to keep the person on.

IF I was supervisor I would say sue us. I would let the property owners know we are going to spend money because of it but give them the reason why. The employee is fired because it is clearly not in the best interest of the property owners. Spend 30k to fire them to save millions if the town got sued because the employee hit a school bus and killed someone.

This is why we vote yes on a state convention so we can change some of the rules that have force this on us property owners.

Dan Roman or Electric. True or False to what I just posted.

It's a shame that can-kicking isn't an Olympic sport. Putting off long-term decisions makes sense, for example, when the world is riven with uncertainty. If you agree to these contracts, you won't notice a big difference, maybe 12% increase ala West Seneca but the major problems won't happen until 10 to 20 years down the road. In 10 or 20 years, the politicians are retired, they're collecting their pension, living in Florida, 6+ months out of the year. The non-government taxpayers are paying the price for everyone's decision. The politicians in WNY, figured out how to get elected, stay elected, created a system to allow excellent benefits and salaries because only 10% of the population cares. The laws in NY favor the union and their contracts that there is no way West Seneca/Cheektowaga etc will ever have lower taxes, impossible. Even if you elected pro-taxpayers to the board, the union can continue with the contract that already exists ala Taylor Law. They only way to fix the current situation is to bankrupt the towns and start from scratch. Otherwise, the 12% in West Seneca will be 10% higher in 5 years.

[jennifer7]

Let's go back to post #4.

The reason this is allowed to happen I'm told is volunteer fire groups can make or break a candidate running for town board.

Think about the hundreds of people involved in the volunteer groups (family or friends) who can push their support to one candidate or another. You give us what we want and we'll support you come election time. Before you know it, seeing the board members are giving the groups "our money" you end up with post #4. You can change out the name of the group but there are many. Just like the group that likes Jack Daniels and White Russian. Keep them liquored up and you'll get your volunteers to carry your petitions.

I totally appreciated what volunteers do and I know others do to. In the end the end though you have to have responsible spending because that tax bills effects people's homes and lives.

It's easy to say if you don't like it move when you know your revenue stream from your town job won't stop no matter how bad an employee you are. You can even be a drug addict, lose your license, not be able to perform your job you were doing and won't be fired. The group with the monopoly of services will force the property owners to keep the person on.

IF I was supervisor I would say sue us. I would let the property owners know we are going to spend money because of it but give them the reason why. The employee is fired because it is clearly not in the best interest of the property owners. Spend 30k to fire them to save millions if the town got sued because the employee hit a school bus and killed someone.

This is why we vote yes on a state convention so we can change some of the rules that have force this on us property owners.

Dan Roman or Electric. True or False to what I just posted.

Here's what you have for FD protection ? If the Insurance appraiser's see this or the owner's know how a fire scene is suppose to be run, They are going to sue the fire co's and the town, Read all the comments below the you tube video https://youtu.be/_emRkNIbVgE

[WNYresident]

Why weren't they hosing it down? Looks like there was no urgency to put it out

[Electric Eye]

Southline Bought 2 pumpers totaling $1.5mil.

You could assume that the old trucks were junk, but you would be wrong because at least one of those old trucks ended up at another fire dept in another town in the area.

Not good enough for southline but good enough for fire fighting in another town.

Just leaves you wondering why and the tax payers of the district footing the bill.

[jennifer7]

Why weren't they hosing it down? Looks like there was no urgency to put it out

How about if people were trapped inside or laying on the floor or if someone was confined to bed on the 1st & 2nd FL. They were suppose to a primary search & secondary search as well do a interior attack on the fire.

[jennifer7]

[QUOTE=jennifer7;1753058]How about if people were trapped inside or laying on the floor or if someone was confined to bed on the 1st & 2nd FL. They were suppose to do a primary search & secondary search as well do a interior attack on the fire. which is taking hose's inside and pushing the fire out