By Paul Wisniewski
CHEEKTOWAGA — Cheektowaga still doesn’t have a 2027 budget, and the clock is running.
At its Tuesday, Nov. 10 meeting, the Town Board rejected a package of cuts to Supervisor Brian Nowak’s preliminary budget and then tabled the resolutions that would have adopted the plan as written, the Cheektowaga Bee reported. The budget would raise the townwide tax levy 9.8%, to $82.9 million. A special meeting is expected before the Nov. 20 deadline to file budget documents with Erie County.
What the board voted down
The cuts came in Resolution 2026-736, sponsored by Republican council members Barbara Bakowski and Vernon Thompson. According to the Bee, it would have removed funding for a proposed deputy highway superintendent (about $85,000) and an additional full-time dog control officer (about $72,000), cut Town Board part-time wages to zero, zeroed out a sanitation garbage packer, lowered the highway salt and blacktop lines to $400,000 each, trimmed overtime and payroll in several departments, and reduced senior services accounts. It also would have raised several revenue estimates, including cannabis tax, sales tax, interest, mortgage tax and building permits.
After a long debate and votes on individual amendments, the amended resolution failed on a roll call. An attempt to reconsider it was withdrawn.
The board then tabled Resolution 2026-737, the ad valorem budget with a $64.9 million levy, and Resolution 2026-738, the benefit basis budget with an $18.0 million levy. Together they make up the $82.9 million total.
Democratic council members Tiffany Collins, Brian Pilarski and Parvez Rahman said they want the increase lower than 9.8%, but acknowledged the final number will still be above the state tax cap, the Bee reported. Nowak said he would honor a request for a special meeting before Nov. 20.
What it means on a tax bill
Nowak filed his tentative budget on Sept. 30. On a house assessed at the town average of $155,400, the total town bill would go from $1,881 to $2,083, an increase of $201, or 10.7%, the Bee reported at the time. Spending would rise about 6%, from $113.6 million to $120.4 million.
The biggest jump is in the Consolidated Sewer District levy, up 26.5%, from $13.5 million to $17.1 million. This year’s budget used $3 million of that district’s savings. Nowak’s plan uses $300,000.
“My 2026 Tentative Budget called for a tax levy increase of 7.6 percent that was rejected by the town board,” Nowak said. “As a result of the board-adopted 2026 budget that I went on record against, the town returned to growing structural deficits.”
In a column in the Bee, he put it more bluntly, saying the 2022 and 2023 budgets raised spending by $5 million while raising the levy by only $3,000. “It was as if the town sold a used car to cover millions in new costs — that simply doesn’t work,” he wrote.
The other side
Republicans say the tax cap decision came too early. The board needed a 60% supermajority to pass Local Law No. 9 of 2026, which lets the town exceed the cap. It passed Oct. 13 with all five Democrats in favor and Bakowski and Thompson opposed, the Bee reported.
“Two weeks into the year, you’re already deciding that we need to exceed the tax cap before even trying to cut a single cost,” Thompson told the Bee, referring to the January public hearing on the measure. Bakowski called the roughly 10% increase an “outrageous amount” and “a double whammy” on top of other rising costs.
Rahman, appointed to a vacant seat, cast the vote that gave Democrats their supermajority. In late August, he had said, “At this time, I do not believe the Town needs to exceed the tax cap.”
What the town’s own numbers show
The town’s budget prep report, dated Sept. 30, shows the general fund property tax levy rising from $46.45 million this year to $48.80 million, about 5%. The plan still draws $6.8 million from the general fund’s savings, down from $7.31 million budgeted this year.
One line deserves a closer look: the hotel bed tax, which is new. The town budgeted $500,001 for 2026 and projected $900,000 for the full year. The report shows $175,597 collected through Sept. 30. The 2027 plan counts on $1.5 million, a figure Nowak himself called aggressive, and one the Republican amendment left unchanged.
At the October tax cap vote, Finance Director Brian Krause told the board it would be “very challenging” to cover payroll costs if the town stayed under the cap.
What happens next
The board has until Nov. 20 to adopt a budget. No special meeting date had been published when the Bee posted its report Tuesday night. Questions still open: how far below 9.8% the Democratic majority wants to go, which cuts it would accept, and how the town would cover the gap if bed tax money falls short of $1.5 million.
The Buffalo Chronicle is seeking comment from the supervisor’s office and the Town Board and will update this story with any response.
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