Ryan, who championed affordability and housing causes throughout his 14-year career in the state Legislature prior to becoming mayor, has repeatedly said the large structural deficit caused by years of flat taxes and increasing costs now makes significant tax increases necessary to bring the city’s books into balance and to fix the many capital needs that have long been neglected.

And, he has said, his administration is looking for efficiencies and searching for outside funding sources to lessen the blow.

“We’re going to do everything we can to minimize the burden on taxpayers,” Ryan said in a recent social media post. “Over $100 million deficit, that can’t be cured with taxes.”
While Council members say they recognize the difficult situation, the potentially ruinous results of such a significant tax increase for people living paycheck to paycheck cannot be ignored.

Council Majority Leader Leah Halton-Pope has been one of the most vocal leaders on the issue, pushing for programs like a tax circuit breaker − a program that would cap the amount of property taxes a property owner can be billed as a percentage of their income − to make sure that people are not pushed out of their homes by the coming tax hikes.

“We want to be responsible, because you don't want to put the burden on one population so heavily over another,” Halton-Pope said. “But we do need to protect those vulnerable, low-income homeowners. There has to be a way to do that.”

Solutions
Several lawmakers and administration officials say existing programs could ensure that people on fixed incomes will be able to absorb the tax increases without falling into arrears on their taxes, something that could result in foreclosure.

In particular, many pointed to the state’s STAR tax credit programs, which can significantly reduce tax bills for those who qualify.

Deputy Mayor Benjamin Swanekamp said that making sure eligible taxpayers are enrolled in available programs is a priority for the administration.

Under a new law, the state will be auto enrolling eligible enhanced STAR recipients into the program based on their tax returns. And there are additional credits available for seniors, one of the most likely groups to be on a fixed income.

“Our proposed levy increase will have very minimal impact for those folks with that going on a sliding scale up there,” Swanekamp said.

Still, those programs do not protect everyone at risk, said Brakeyshia Samms, a senior analyst at the Institute on Taxation and Economic Policy, a national tax policy think tank.

“It's not available to young homeowners who are struggling. It's not available to middle-aged homeowners who are struggling,” Samms said. “And so it's not really that comprehensive of a program, because it's not just impacting seniors.”

When the administration held its public hearing on the looming tax increase, required under the state’s 2% tax cap, Sarah Wooton of the Partnership for the Public Good urged the administration to look into best practices from other cities to offer more avenues to relief.
Wooton said she is encouraged by the interest of Council members and administration officials in putting protections in place.

“I think that there was some momentum there last year,” Wooton said of Halton-Pope’s push to implement a circuit breaker. “I think it's important to keep pushing now, whether or not it can be implemented in time of this current year's tax bill.”

She and Samms pointed to several programs already in place across the country that could work in Buffalo. Circuit breaker programs are in place in Hialeah, Fla., and Illinois. In Philadelphia, lawmakers agreed to freeze tax bills for low-income property owners at 2024 rates. And in Maryland, programs exist for tax debt relief for people who qualify.

Wooton said her organization has looked into ways to limit the percentage by which a landlord can raise rent over a single year, considering factors like renovations or tax increases. And Partnership for the Public Good has pushed for good cause eviction protections for years.
Increased taxes are often passed on to renters by landlords in the form of rising rents, which could also push people out of their homes.

Samms also raised the possibility of increasing the tax rate marginally on the highest-assessed properties in the city to bring in more revenue.

That would affect people at the top of the wealth bracket who can afford an increase and could bring in significant amounts of money to the city coffers, Samms said.

“I think it's options like that you can also do instead of just relying on increasing property taxes on the backs of people on fixed income and renters,” Samms said. 

Moving forward
Swanekamp said the administration remains open to new options for protections, but said it may be difficult to get them in place before this year’s tax increases go into effect, as many such options would likely require approval of the state Legislature, which ends its session in June.

Ryan, in fact, sponsored a circuit breaker bill as a state senator that never gained momentum, an effort that could be revived in the future.

Swanekamp said officials are also looking into models to collect tax bills on a monthly basis, an idea first introduced by Halton-Pope. While this system is not common in the state, he said New York City has a system tied to auto-payment enrollment.

Wooton said her organization understands the need to raise revenue after years of flat taxes and rising costs. But it’s also important to put protections in place to prevent people from losing their home or apartment, results that cause negative effects that go beyond harming those individual people.

Being forced out of a home makes a person more likely to suffer from mental health issues, more likely to lose a job and tears at the fabric of communities, she added.

“We need our streets to be plowed and our fires to be put out,” Wooton said. “But we also need to keep our lowest-income residents in their homes, because forced moves like foreclosures and evictions, they cause really deep harms to both residents and their neighborhoods.”

To read the full article on The Buffalo News' website, click here.