OBSERVER Photo by Gregory Bacon The Chautauqua County Legislature approved the 2026 budget, with only Republican support. Democrats wanted to use more reserve funds to further drive down the property tax rate but their proposal was rejected.

MAYVILLE – For the third year in a row the Chautauqua County budget has been passed with only Republican support after Democrats tried unsuccessfully to use more reserves to offer a bigger tax break.

On Wednesday, the legislature voted 14-5 to approve 2026’s $309.7 spending plan. It carries a property tax rate of $6.17 per $1,000 assessed valuation, which is a reduction of 54 cents from the 2025 tax rate. The levy, the amount raised by taxes, will go up by 2%.

Before the vote, Legislator Fred Larson, D-Jamestown, proposed using $2 million of the county reserves to further drive down taxes. He said by using the amount, there would be no increase in the levy and the tax rate would drop further to about $6 per $1,000 assessed valuation.

Larson noted the county has around $35 million in its undesignated reserve fund, which he calls a “slush fund” because it can be used for anything.

“It’s not a reserve for capital, it’s not a reserve for building improvements; it’s nothing,” he said.

The county’s financial management plan calls for the undesignated reserve fund to be between 5 and 15%. When County Executive PJ Wendel first proposed the budget, it was going to be 11.5%. The county legislature did use $176,000 more of that to go to the county’s safety net costs in 2026.

Larson noted that today’s undesignated reserve fund is much higher than in the past.

At the end of 2008, the undesignated reserves were $13.5 million.

Five years later the undesignated reserves were $12.6 million. After the county home was sold, the account went up to $19.9 million.

“That was over a $7 million increase in one year in the fund balance due to the profit from the sale of the county home. That’s a handsome fund balance. Now the fund balance hovers around $35 million,” Larson said.

Larson noted how Jamestown is looking to use half of its fund balance reserves for its 2026 budget.

“I’m not even close to suggesting that. All this amendment does is use $2 million of $35 million to hold the line on the real property tax levy,” he said.

Legislator Tom Carle, D-Fredonia, who is running for county executive, expressed his support to use more fund balance.

“In a matter of months we’ll have an opportunity to have a change in leadership to reduce costs and replenish the fund,” he said.

However Legislator Terry Niebel, R-Sheridan, felt that this is not the time to spend down the undesignated fund balance further.

“The federal government is planning on decreasing the 2026 federal budget by about $1.5 trillion. We don’t really know what effect that might have on Chautauqua County,” he said.

He also noted that the county jail is in need of serious upgrades, with a price tag of $120 million.

“The new jail figures out to be $1,000 for every man, woman and child in Chautauqua County,” he said.

Legislator Dan Pavlock, R-Ellington expressed his concern that even though the legislature has increased the amount of money for safety net costs, he still believes that it’s underfunded and the county will likely have to use its reserves at the end of next year.

Democratic Legislators Carle, Larson, Tom Nelson of Jamestown, and Bob Bankoski and Marcus Buchanan, both of Dunkirk, all voted in favor of using $2 million in reserves, which failed, and all voted against the 2026 budget.

In 2023, the Democratic caucus proposed using $1 million in reserves. In 2024 they proposed using $2 million. Like this year, each vote failed and the budget passed with only Republican support.

In both 2021 and 2022, the legislature unanimously approved the budget for the following year. In 2020, Niebel was the only legislator to vote against the budget after county lawmakers rejected Wendel’s proposal to reduce the property tax rate by 5 cents and instead increased the rate by 10 cents. That was the last year the property tax rate went up.