Dunkirk Assessor Erica Munson is outraged by significant budget cuts to her office, and thinks they are retribution for speaking out against Mayor Kate Wdowiasz. The mayor denied that in comments to the OBSERVER.

Munson complained about the proposed cuts at a meeting of the Common Council’s Finance Committee Friday.

The Assessor’s Office supply budget was cut from $500 to zero in Wdowiasz’s 2026 budget proposal, and Munson’s travel budget was also zeroed out after getting $400 for this year. A contracted services line was chopped down to just $750 after a $12,500 outlay this year, and a training line was cut from $2,500 to $750.

In fact, Munson told the Finance Committee, there is just $1,600 allocated to her office after salaries.

“I have to travel the city as part of my job,” she said of the travel line. As for the supply line, “Am I supposed to ask people to bring their own pens to the Assessor’s Office?”

“There’s plenty of pens in City Hall,” replied Fiscal Affairs Officer Ellen Luczkowiak, a comment which didn’t impress Munson.

The assessor said her budget was “slashed” and called it “ridiculous and appalling.”

Munson sharply criticized Wdowiasz’s mayorship during a February Common Council meeting. She suggested a no-confidence vote in Wdowiasz, or even her resignation, over “a lack of professionalism and essential leadership skills necessary to guide our team.” Munson stated that “the fear of retaliation exists” throughout Dunkirk among those who cross the mayor, and that City Hall was a toxic work environment under Wdowiasz’s administration.

The OBSERVER asked Munson if the budget cuts are payback for her February statements. “Absolutely,” she replied, adding that the budget as a whole is “chaos.”

As for the statements themselves, “every single word I have said has been validated.”

“This is not retaliation,” Wdowiasz told the OBSERVER later Friday. “Where departmental spending for the last two years reflected a lower dollar amount (than budgeted), I budgeted a lower amount.”

Wdowiasz turned to the budget to note that the Assessor’s Office spent $0 on travel for 2023, $164.82 in ’24, and $0 so far this year. Training saw just a $46.46 expenditure in 2023, followed by $596 in 2024 and $621.99 thus far in ’25.

The office did spend $641.28 in 2023 and $478.95 in 2024 for supplies, but nothing so far this year. The contracted services line saw just over $26,000 spent in 2023, which Wdowiasz said was related to NRG assessment battles. However, just $497.81 was spent in 2024 and $569.81 of a budgeted $12,500 to date this year.

“What I adjusted was literally what was spent and what was not spent,” Wdowiasz said. “Every department that didn’t use what was budgeted for them last year, was reduced to a real number. I’m not giving them any extra padding in their budgets.”

The mayor pointed out that any department head that feels they need more money can make their case to the Common Council. The council gets the final vote on the budget, after making whatever alterations it deems necessary.

Wdowiasz also stated that this year, the Office of the State Comptroller will review and give input on the budget.

The mayor also clapped back at Munson for her statements in February.

“Quite honestly, if anybody’s creating a toxic work environment, it’s with comments like those,” Wdowiasz said. “She could have come and talked to me” in private, rather than airing the grievances publicly, the mayor added.

Munson had another move in the tussle with Wdowiasz Friday, attacking the proposed salary hike in the mayoral salary line.

The assessor told the Finance Committee that, according to her understanding of state law, the mayor needs a Common Council resolution to raise her own salary. The resolution would have to allow for a public referendum on the raise — and the salary hike would not take effect until the next mayoral term.