The Erie County Office of Budget and Management today released the county’s 2019 Revenue and Expense Report (“Report”), a budgetary tool that details activity in key county budgetary sectors and provides a template for the creation of the annual county budget, which is itself due by October 15. The Revenue and Expense Report is submitted to the Comptroller each year on October 1 and provides a snapshot of what to expect in the finalized budget; this year’s report announces a reduction in the 2019 county tax rate while Erie County remains within the tax cap limit.

“The Revenue and Expense Report is an important part of the annual budget process and gives a first   impression of the county’s overall fiscal health, which is good and getting better. Thanks to my administration’s proactive and realistic contract negotiations with unions representing our employees we are anticipating considerable savings in health insurance costs, and employees will notice that in their paychecks as well. In addition, a decrease in the county property tax levy is likely but the amount is not yet finalized,” said Erie County Executive Mark C. Poloncarz. “Along with that positive news, we have seen an increase in bed tax revenue thanks to growth in the local tourism sector and we will be reducing the cost to taxpayers for chargebacks relating to amounts previously paid by the county to other community colleges by $3.6 million, similar to a reduction we first made in last year’s budget. Taken together, these are all good items that underline the health of the county budget and the attention to detail shown by the Office of Budget and Management as they prepared this Report. I thank them for their work and look forward to joining them for the full budget release on or before October 15^th.”

Erie County’s greater-than-expected sales tax receipts in 2018 also played a large role in the amounts noted in the Report, which conservatively estimates sales tax growth of 1.75 % in the 2019 Budget over that of 2018 projected revenue; however, due to expected 2018 sales tax growth the 2019 budgeted amount is 4.3% greater than that of the 2018 adopted budget.

# # #