By Staff Reporter
NORTH TONAWANDA — North Tonawanda taxpayers are being asked to say yes twice this fall.
The first ask is a 4.25% increase in the city’s property tax levy, the centerpiece of Mayor Austin Tylec’s proposed $52.1 million general fund budget for 2027. The second is on the November ballot: whether the city may borrow up to $18 million to build a community center at 500 Wheatfield St.
The Common Council scheduled its public hearing on the budget for Tuesday, Oct. 20, and the city’s amended legal notice now sets the adoption vote for 6 p.m. Tuesday, Nov. 10, a week after Election Day. An earlier notice had listed Nov. 4. The council has the final say over the numbers.
What the levy increase buys
The mayor’s 2027 budget message, dated Oct. 1, lays out the math. The general fund would grow by $3,712,426 to $52,061,128, while revenue is projected at $50,509,648. That leaves a gap of about $1.55 million.
Mr. Tylec proposes closing roughly $635,000 of it with part of the extra $1 million in state aid the city received this year. The 4.25% levy increase covers the remaining $916,480 or so. The tax rate would rise from $16.94 to about $17.33 per $1,000 of assessed value, about $39 a year on a home assessed at $100,000. Mr. Tylec told The Ken-Ton Bee the rate increase itself works out to about 2.3%, the Bee reported.
Because the increase exceeds the state’s tax cap, the council needed a local law to override it. A public hearing on that measure, Local Law No. 4 of 2026, was noticed for Oct. 13.
The budget message lists the cost pressures behind the gap. They include about $1.7 million in contractual wage increases, roughly $628,000 more for retirement, $332,895 more for health insurance, $500,000 more for utilities and about $635,000 more in debt service as the city carries the cost of grant-funded projects until the reimbursements arrive.
“The 2027 budget reflects a City that is no longer focused solely on recovering from financial instability,” Mr. Tylec wrote.
An eighth straight increase
Residents have heard the recovery story before, and they have paid for it. A table in the mayor’s own message shows the council has approved a tax increase in every budget since 2020: 1.59%, 3.75%, 1.75%, 5%, 6.49%, 3.54% and 3.65%. If the council adopts the 2027 plan, it would be the eighth consecutive increase by that count.
The payoff, the administration argues, is a cushion. Unappropriated reserves fell to $288,492 in 2021 and are projected at $5,724,936 at the end of 2026, according to the message, and Moody’s has kept the city’s A2 rating.
Mr. Tylec is also leaning on city-owned assets. In 2026 the city paid $350,000 to end the last 15 years of a marina and restaurant concession at 1000 River Road, and it now budgets about $149,000 a year in marina revenue, up from $46,000. Deerwood Golf Course is budgeted to bring in about $1.8 million. Interest on cash in money market accounts is projected to climb from about $450,000 to about $732,000.
“We’ve made a lot of smart investments in short term money market accounts. We found long term investments in properties that will generate income,” Mr. Tylec said when he presented the budget, WGRZ reported.
The debt question
The numbers that may draw the most questions are in the debt section. As of Sept. 30, the city carried about $15.55 million in long-term serial debt and about $40.48 million in short-term bond anticipation notes. About $32 million of that total is tied to projects backed by local, state or federal grants, and the administration expects much of it to be paid down as reimbursements arrive, many by the end of 2027.
That is a lot of money riding on reimbursement schedules, including the nearly $10 million Payne Park aquatic facility, which is expected to open for the 2027 swim season.
“Investments should be evaluated not only by what they cost today, but by what they can save, generate, leverage, or prevent in the years ahead,” Mr. Tylec wrote.
Water, sewer and the ballot
Separately, the water rate would rise from $3.00 to $3.35 per 1,000 gallons and the sewer rate from $5.00 to $5.25. For a household using 60,000 gallons a year, that comes to about $36 more, the message says, citing new PFAS testing requirements, utility costs and aging plants. The mayor argues North Tonawanda’s combined bill of about $540 still compares well with Lockport (about $929) and the Town of Tonawanda (about $678). “It does not mean rates should be increased simply because other communities charge more,” he added.
Then there is the community center. The engineering estimate is about $15.5 million. The proposition would allow borrowing of up to $18 million to cover escalation and contingencies. The city is pursuing up to $5 million from the state’s NY BRICKS program, and the senior center now rents month to month and faces a proposed rent increase of about $50,000 a year.
“That figure is a maximum authorization, not a requirement that the full amount be borrowed,” the message says of the $18 million.
North Tonawanda isn’t alone. The Town of Tonawanda has proposed a 3.9% levy increase, Spectrum News reported.
What residents can still ask
Several questions remain open before Nov. 10: whether the council adopted the tax cap override on Oct. 13, what residents said at the Oct. 20 hearing (minutes were not yet posted), how much of the $40.48 million in short-term notes will be retired in 2027, and how debt service on a community center bond would affect future levies if voters approve it.
The Buffalo Chronicle has asked Mr. Tylec and Common Council President Gabrielle Richards for comment and will update this story with their answers.
Featured image: North Tonawanda City Hall. Photo by DanielPenfield / Wikimedia Commons, CC BY-SA 4.0, cropped.
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