The Chautauqua County Legislature has completed its review of County Executive PJ Wendel’s proposed 2025 budget and is proposing to reduce the increase in the levy ever so slightly, which will also slightly further reduce the proposed property tax rate in 2025.

Last week, the legislature’s six committees spent more than 19 hours in budget reviews, analyzing Wendel’s proposed spending plan, talking to various department heads and to one another.

Once the review was completed, the Audit and Control Committee put together changes to Wendel’s proposed budget which will be brought before the full legislature at its next meeting Oct. 23.

According to Legislature Chairman Pierre Chagnon, R-Ellery, the Audit and Control Committee is proposing a $73,256,471 levy, which is the amount collected by taxes. Wendel had proposed a $73,421,447 tax levy, up from this year’s levy of $71,527,108.

Wendel’s budget called for a property tax rate of $6.72 per thousand dollars of assessed valuation, 19 cents lower than the current year.

Chagnon said with the Audit and Control Committee’s slightly lower tax levy, the tax rate will drop an additional 1.5 cents per thousand dollars of assessed valuation.

Chagnon said the primary driver of the reduction was that the wrong grade of diesel fuel was initially proposed. There were a handful of minor adjustments as well.

Chagnon said county lawmakers heard from the district attorney, sheriff, emergency services, and Social Services regarding challenges each department is facing in 2025.

Wendel proposed major budget changes in the county’s fly car program and the safety net.

Chagnon noted that the fly car program, which assists volunteer firefighter departments in responding to Emergency Medical Services calls, has nearly a $1 million difference on the levy. Spending for the fly car program is going up $628,000 and the revenue expectation has dropped by $359,000.

It was believed when the program was adopted years ago, insurance billing would cover the entire cost, but that has never come close to being a reality.

The safety net program, which is used by Social Services for individuals who are not eligible for public assistance from the state, is also being changed in 2025, going up $1.25 million, with the county’s share being $508,000.

This is Chagnon’s 11th budget. He complimented Wendel and the county’s Finance Department for addressing not only the safety net and the fly car program, but the spending plan overall.

“I would say without hesitation that this year’s budget is the best that I’ve seen,” he said.

Immediately after Wendel released his proposed 2025 spending plan, the five Democratic legislators called on the full legislature to further reduce the tax levy by spending down $2 million of the county’s fund balance.

Chagnon said that proposal was discussed during the budget reviews but was not implemented by the Audit and Control Committee.

“With the projections that the finance staff has put together, they are projecting that when we end this year, 2024, the fund balance will go down by $8.5 million, which will bring it down to 13.3% of appropriations,” he said.

Chagnon said next year’s fund balance will drop by $1.4 million in 2025. Combining that drop with the $8.5 million reduction from the end of this year, the Audit and Control Committee did not support any further use of fund balance money to reduce the 2025 tax levy.

In general, Chagnon said they want to use fund balance for one-time expenses and reduce the property tax to keep it under the state-mandated tax cap level.

Chagnon said if they didn’t use $1.4 million of the fund balance in 2025, it would have pushed the tax levy increase higher than the state’s property tax cap, which for 2025 is 2.76%.

He also said by law, the county cannot use any of its reserves to help out other municipalities’ budgets. The city of Dunkirk is looking at a 108% increase in its property tax rate.

“We certainly look for opportunities to collaborate and work together with other municipalities. There’s no opportunity for us to directly transfer funds between the county and municipalities. … We never want to find ourselves in a situation where we’re being considered to be making an unconstitutional gift of public funds,” he said.