Western New York leaders didn't have high expectations for an influx of new spending when the governor presented this year's budget proposal.

"We knew going in, especially with the governor's State of the State, it wasn't the usual goodie bag that it is," said Mark Poloncarz, (D) Erie County executive.

Poloncarz says his general hope is the state will simply do no harm to local governments.

"We know they're facing a $4 billion budget deficit in addition to the issues associated with the impact to New York by the federal tax reform bill," said Poloncarz.

State Senator Tim Kennedy says historically when New York faces a large shortfall, it's Upstate New York that suffers the most. But he doesn't believe that will be the case.

"I'm very pleased that the continuation of property tax relief for homeowners will be in the budget as well as a continuation of the economic development funding for Buffalo and Western New York,” Kennedy (D) said.

It's not all glowing endorsements though, as Republican legislators from Western New York say they still have serious concerns, particularly about taxes and spending.

"I think it's a scary proposition just by saying that. We are among the highest taxed in the country and to add a billion dollars in new taxes and fees of course raises concerns," said Pat Gallivan, (R) Senate – Elma.

"He talks about, ‘well we've only increased two percent, two percent, two percent year over year,’ but the reality is we were spending too much money to begin with,” said Ray Walter, (R) Assembly – Amherst.

Democratic Assemblyman Robin Schimminger also believes a possible payroll tax to address federal deductibility concerns is a non-starter and prefers his own proposal to create a state-run charity.

"Now the governor, he seemed to poo-poo this idea by saying the disadvantage in the charitable contribution is that it's not dollar-for-dollar but wait, maybe that's his construct that he's coming up with, wouldn't be dollar-for-dollar, but mine is," said Schimminger, (D) Assembly – Kenmore.

Poloncarz says at first glance, he does have one major concern about the governor's proposal to cut as much as $18 million to community colleges.

"Our goal is to hopefully get to a point where we can reduce the cost of tuition for our students, but if SUNY Erie is now faced with receiving less money than it did from the state in the previous year, I don't know how we're going to do that,” said Poloncarz.