BUFFALO, N.Y. — The state Legislature doesn't appear to be ready to pass legislation to allow the city of Buffalo to impose up to an additional 5% bed tax for overnight rentals at hotels and motels within the city limits.

It would be on top of the rate the county charges of 5% of the room rate for hotels with more than 30 rooms and 3% for those with 30 or less. If the legislation does not go through it will create a more than $4 million projected revenue hole in Buffalo's already approved budget.

Assembly Majority Leader Crystal Peoples-Stokes, D-Buffalo, introduced the bill last week but tells Spectrum News 1 she never intended for it to pass this session with just a few remaining days.

Rather, she says she hopes to start a conversation about how leaders throughout the region can help the city get to a better financial position.

"Any time you are talking about increasing taxes, it's a long discussion and it takes a lot longer than four days, and I understand that but I also do understand that at some point the conversation has to start, because without a question there are some financial issues that the city of Buffalo has to deal with and I want to be a part of trying to help that," she said. 

The legislation does not have a state Senate sponsor. A potential prospective sponsor, Sean Ryan, D-Buffalo, said the hospitality, tourism and convention industries have voiced concerns to him. He said if rooms cost more in Buffalo than the rest of the county, it could drive guests and conventions out of the city.

"We just can't go to sort of one offs and gimmicks," Ryan said. "The city's got to solve its structural problems to figure out why are they in this major deficit and a hotel tax, not getting it is not going to kill the city's budget but we fear it might kill the tourism industry."

Buffalo Common Council Member Mitch Nowakowski, D-Fillmore District, said the council does not expect the Legislature to pass the bill until at least next session.

"I'm not waiting as a finance chair for someone to come in and save us and give us a windfall of money to even out this budget, that we're going to have to start moving forward in honesty and duty, reducing expenditures in the city of Buffalo in lieu of very shaky revenue lines," he said.

Nowakowski and others have drawn attention to structural issues with the budget they believe will eventually deplete the city's reserves. He said the city is relying on speculative and non-recurring revenue sources, including the additional bed tax, money from the Seneca Nation under a not-yet-negotiated new Gaming Compact and federal American Rescue Plan funds, to balance the budget this year.