SALAMANCA, N.Y. \u2014\u00a0Controversy continues over negotiations between New York state and the Seneca Nation of Indians on a new gaming compact.<\/p>\n
Both sides are at a standstill over revenue sharing that would impact Western New York.<\/p>\n
The impact would be significant, as the cities of Buffalo, Niagara Falls and Salamanca rely heavily on the funding generated from casino revenue, especially as budget season is underway.<\/p>\n
The ongoing dispute between the state and the Seneca Nation has left leaders hanging in the balance.<\/p>\n
“I always feel like we’re in the middle,” said\u00a0Sandra Magiera, (D) mayor, Salamanca.<\/p>\n
The stakes couldn’t be higher for the city of Salamanca in Cattaraugus County.<\/p>\n
“It is crucial for us to be able to give the services to the people of Salamanca the same service that they get now,” said Magiera.<\/p>\n
For Magiera, casino revenue from the compact represents 30% of the city’s operating budget.<\/p>\n
She says a lack of funding would impact more than just services.<\/p>\n
“We’d probably have to do some layoffs, which we really don’t want to do, but I don’t know what other answer it would be,” said Magiera.<\/p>\n
The original 2002 compact that gave the state 25% of certain slot machine revenue\u00a0expired in 2023.<\/p>\n
While the state says a new agreement has yet to be finalized, Seneca Nation leaders believe a deal has been reached that no longer provides that funding.<\/p>\n
“We negotiated this agreement in principle that right now contains no revenue sharing provision with New York state. We expect this agreement will be finalized and sent to the New York state Legislature sometime in the spring,” said\u00a0J.C. Seneca, president, Seneca Nation of Indians.<\/p>\n
Separate from the compact, state legislation required the three cities to allocate funding to community stakeholders, including about $750,000 to the Niagara Falls City School District.<\/p>\n
The district has used past funding to help build a new multimillion-dollar athletic and recreational complex.<\/p>\n
“It’s something that can be earmarked for programs, it could be earmarked for staffing. But as we go into the budget season, knowing what we’re facing from the federal level, from the state level of allocation of funding that we’re receiving, this potential support would be very significant to the school district in Niagara Falls,” said\u00a0Stanley Wojton, superintendent, Niagara Falls City School District.<\/p>\n
Wojton also said the money could be used to help fund the upcoming changes to graduation requirements as well, under the New York State Portrait of a Graduate, a statewide framework adopted by the Board of Regents\u00a0in July 2025.<\/p>\n
Stakeholders remain hopeful a deal can be finalized that brings revenue sharing back to their communities.<\/p>\n
“We do depend on that quite a bit,” said Magiera.<\/p>\n
Any agreement would still need state legislative approval before a new compact could take effect.<\/p>\n
In exchange for revenue sharing, Nation leaders are asking for more market protections and economic opportunities to generate revenue.<\/p>\n
State leaders say negotiations are ongoing and any public discussion of specific terms and details is premature.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"SALAMANCA, N.Y. \u2014\u00a0Controversy continues over negotiations between New York state and the Seneca Nation of Indians on a…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":366669,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[113,16799,9,11,10,49,51,50,12,112,108,87,200],"class_list":["post-366668","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-new-york","tag-buffalo","tag-mark-goshgarian","tag-new-york","tag-new-york-headlines","tag-new-york-news","tag-new-york-state","tag-new-york-state-headlines","tag-new-york-state-news","tag-news","tag-ny-state-of-politics","tag-ny-state-of-politics-blog","tag-politics","tag-vod"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/366668","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=366668"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/366668\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/366669"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=366668"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=366668"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=366668"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}