Mayoral candidate Rasheed Wyatt calls for cuts to police, fire overtime in effort to help budget

Yahoo

07-05-2025

BUFFALO, N.Y. (WIVB) — Buffalo mayoral candidate Rasheed Wyatt called for cuts to overtime for police and fire as part of the effort to reduce the city's budget deficit.
Wyatt, the Buffalo Common Councilman for the University District, said that the city's overtime budget for the police department and fire department has steadily increased over the past five years by over $10 million for the police department and by around $5 million for the fire department.
He stated that the city has spent $127 million on overtime budgets for police and fire since 2019. He is calling for the annual budgets for police and fire overtime to be cut in half at least, but is not calling for layoffs and said he supports the police and fire unions.
'I'm not saying lay off fire, lay off police,' Wyatt said in a news conference on Wednesday morning. 'I think as a councilmember I've been very supportive of the unions. I've helped them when they wanted cars, they wanted fire equipment, apparatuses, I've supported all of those things. I'm not against unions, but I am against overtime that impinges on the quality of life of residents.'
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Wyatt cited decreasing violent crime in the city over the years. According to annual police reports from the Buffalo Police Department, violent crime including homicides, robberies, assaults and burglaries have decreased steadily since 2018.
Wyatt was the only member of the Buffalo Common Council to vote against last year's $618 million city budget under former mayor Byron Brown. He was a vocal critic of Brown and is a critic of current Acting Mayor Chris Scanlon, who was noted for his ability to work with Brown.
Last month Scanlon announced his $622 million proposed budget, but residents and his opponents in the mayoral race have criticized him for it, including State Senator and fellow mayoral candidate Sean Ryan. Scanlon's budget includes an 8% property tax hike, a proposal for a 3% hotel occupancy tax and selling city-owned parking ramps.
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'I think the Acting Mayor is showing that he is Byron Brown 2.0, doing these types of antics that really don't help the residents of the City of Buffalo,' Wyatt said.
Wyatt proposed actions such as funds for art programs, youth programs and helping small businesses as ways extra cash could be used.
'If we don't manage our finances better, we cannot be able to help the city at-large,' Wyatt said. 'We will continue to have our hand out every year begging the state, begging whoever will gibe us money to fix problems internally that I believe can be fixed.'
You can view Wyatt's full news conference from Wednesday in the video player above.
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Aidan Joly joined the News 4 staff in 2022. He is a graduate of Canisius College. You can see more of his work here.
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