Buffalo Mayor Byron Brown has vetoed the Buffalo Common Council’s proposal to change the timeline of the city's budget process.
In July, the council approved amendments to sections of the city charter that would move the deadline for the mayor's proposed budget from May 1 to April 8 each year.
The amendment also extends the council’s deadline to approve or amend the budget from May 22 to May 26.
In a letter to the council explaining his veto, Brown said the new law “creates an unnecessarily early and lengthy budget process.”
Brown stated that the current timeline has been in place since 1967 and that the Common Council has “consistently” been able to make alterations within that timeframe for over 50 years.
The council’s proposed amendments would bring the city’s budget timeline closer to that of the state’s, which has an April 1 deadline each year.
However, the state has missed that marker four years in row, and this year the Senate passed the budget 19 days late. That makes it “difficult, if not impossible” to provide accurate funding projections by April 8 according to Brown’s letter.
The proposed amendments to the local law have now been passed back to the council where they can either vote to override the mayor’s veto or go back to the drawing board.
