The Dunkirk Common Council moved to reduce a proposed 108% tax rate in the 2025 city budget Tuesday — but Mayor Kate Wdowiasz apparently plans to veto it, in part over concerns about a hike in water and wastewater rates, and an interest payment on a Revenue Anticipation Note (RAN).

Councilperson-at-large Nick Weiser said the council had made “nearly $1.5 million in reductions across all funds and another $1.7 million in added revenues through forthcoming policy changes and strategic use of our tax stabilization reserve.”

He said the council “has created a differential of more than $2.4 million, with $1.9 million of that amount being used to offset the mayor’s proposed tax increase. While this is not the level of relief we had hoped to achieve, it is significant and it represents substantial progress toward a more sustainable budget.”

It’s not immediately clear how much that would hack into the 108% property tax increase Wdowiasz initially proposed. City officials didn’t say what the new tax hike percentage would be.

The council voted unanimously, 5-0, to approve the 2025 budget. If that setup holds, the council will be able to override Wdowiasz’s veto — it needs four votes to do so.

Wdowiasz interjected as council was about to hold its budget vote Tuesday.

“I was just given these budget modifications,” she said. “There’s a few things I noticed. The $900,000 in the RAN interest was not added in. There are some speculative revenues from water that haven’t been addressed yet — I know we were discussing a change in water rates.”

Councilperson-at-large Nick Weiser said the RAN interest was simply moved to another budget line. “Relative to proposed increases in water and wastewater, those figures assume further action (that) council intends to take,” he said.

Wdowiasz responded, “I would caution council on those numbers, because those numbers are relying strictly on an individual that has been named as unreliable through audits and the Office of the State Comptroller’s letter.” The mayor said she was giving the council a “heads up” on what she planned to vero.

Weiser said he got financial data from multiple sources. Wdowiasz then roasted City Treasurer Mark Woods, strongly implying he is the “individual” criticized in the audits and letter.

“I would say if anything came from the Treasurer’s Office, I wouldn’t trust that data, as per the OSC’s letter to us and by the two years of audits we’ve recently received,” she said.

“These numbers did not come from the Treasurer’s Office,” Weiser replied.

Wdowiasz later concluded, “I think these are very speculative numbers and will impact our industry in a very harmful way.”