The City Council discussed establishing a local law exceeding the tax cap levy limit during Monday’s meeting. P-J photo by Sara Holthouse

While budget season remains months away, the city of Jamestown has already put the establishment of a local law to allow the city to exceed the two percent tax levy limit on the table for next year’s budget.

During Monday’s work session, Council President Tony Dolce said this is something that the city has done before, acknowledging it usually happens later in the year.

“We’ve done this in the past, usually later in the year during budget season,” Dolce said. “Again, even if this law is passed we don’t have to utilize it. It’s just a protection, we’ve done it last year, and we’ve done it several years.”

Dolce added that if the council gets to budget season and ends up not needing to utilize the local law they do not have to. The local law does not lock them into anything, rather it gives them options if it is needed.

“Given last year’s budget and the possible anticipation of a difficult budget again, it would just give us that option,” Dolce said.

The work session agenda notes that the anticipated potentially difficult budget for 2026 is due to the need to account for the budget deficit and possible union contracts with police and fire.

The council briefly discussed $1.3 million that was lost by the previous administration from Medicaid payments that was part of last year’s budget discussion. At the moment the city is still working to get that money back. The local law was approved by the public safety committee, meaning it will be tabled for the next meeting and voted on in May.