Sep 16
2025
Shaky math involving Buffalo’s budget balancer
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The 52-year-old Charles R. Turner Ramp across from Buffalo City Hall. Photo by I’Jaz Ja’ciel.
The City of Buffalo’s current budget and its four-year financial plan rely on $42 million from the anticipated sale of four downtown parking ramps to a newly formed public authority.
But how Acting Mayor Chris Scanlon’s administration came up with that number, and whether it accurately reflects the price the ramps will fetch, is a mystery.
- City officials have refused to share documents showing how they determined what the ramps are worth.
- The board treasurer of the organization that manages the ramps now — and which estimated the ramps’ value for the city — says the $42 million figure ignores long-term maintenance costs that are likely to concern investors and bring down the price. That’s a concern shared by municipal finance experts.
- And some city lawmakers, frustrated by the lack of information provided by Acting Mayor Chris Scanlon, are threatening to hold up appointments to the board of the new authority until the administration shows the Common Council its math.
The problem is, the administration hasn’t done any, according to the city’s law department and its finance commissioner.
City attorneys, in a response to a Freedom of Information request from Investigative Post, have repeatedly claimed there are no records to share.
And at last week’s meeting of the Buffalo Fiscal Stability Authority, Finance Commissioner Ray Nosworthy confirmed there was no paperwork to be had.
“I never did any math. Nobody on the city side did any math regarding that,” Nosworthy told Investigative Post. “The city has no documentation or anything to share regarding that.”
Rather, city officials relied on Buffalo Civic Auto Ramps — the nonprofit that manages the city’s ramps — to provide a dollar estimate. According to Nosworthy, the agency valued the ramps between $45 million and $60 million by using net income to predict investors’ rate of return.
Nosworthy said the city used a more conservative figure, $42 million, in its four-year financial plan. A portion of that, $26.5 million, is committed to this year’s $622 million budget.
However, Rocco Termini, a real-estate developer and treasurer for the Buffalo Civic Auto Ramps board of directors, said the agency’s estimate did not take into account the age and condition of the ramps.
“That’s all that they’re looking at, is cash flow. And I think you have to look beyond that,” he said. “The older the ramps get, the more expensive it is to make capital improvements on those.”
Matt Fabian, a bond market expert with the consulting firm Municipal Market Analytics, echoed Termini’s assessment. He warned that the city may not have taken into account factors that could reduce the amount of money the new authority can raise via a bond sale to buy the ramps from the city.
Chief among those factors is the cost of future maintenance.
“We need to know a lot more details, that’s my perspective,” Fabian said.
Age of ramps diminishes value
The sale of the four city-owned ramps is supposed to work like this:
- The Buffalo Parking and Mobility Authority, created by state legislation in May at Scanlon’s request, will go to the bond market to borrow money to buy the ramps from the city.
- The bond-funded purchase price will provide the city upfront cash to balance city budgets in this and the following three fiscal years.
- The authority will manage the ramps, using revenue generated by parking fees to pay operating costs and debt service on those bonds.
- The authority will remit to the city any profit remaining after operating costs and debt service are paid.
That’s more or less the arrangement the city has with Buffalo Civic Auto Ramps now, except the city holds title to the ramps. The nonprofit has sent the city an average of $3.7 million per year since 2015, according to financial statements. In the last couple post-pandemic years — workers have returned to downtown offices and the agency’s annual debt service has gone down — the average net revenue has risen to nearly $4.5 million.
The agency’s estimate of the ramps’ value was based on that net revenue. That means debt service payments and at least some maintenance costs were factored in. Scanlon and Nosworthy have said they expect the new authority will continue to make a profit to share with the city, albeit less than Buffalo Civic Auto Ramps makes now.
The 37-year-old Robert D. Fernbach Ramp on Franklin St. Photo by I’Jaz Ja’ciel.
Termini, the board treasurer, said whoever is managing the ramps — whether it’s Buffalo Civic Auto Ramps or the new authority — likely will have to incur new debt to keep the structures safe. The age of the ramps could result in far greater upkeep costs and worry investors, he said.
“Nobody took into consideration engineering reports and what it would cost to fix the ramps to the standards of whoever’s buying them is going to be,” he said.
The result: “You’re not going to pay a high price for those ramps,” he said.
The oldest of the four parking structures is the Turner Ramp, located across the street from City Hall. It was built in 1973. Buffalo Civic Auto Ramps allocates around $700,000 annually for maintenance of that ramp and the other three — Augsburger, Adam and Fernbach. The nonprofit’s debt service was just about $892,000 last year, down from $2.7 million a decade ago.
Termini said the Turner Ramp’s age and its structural engineering are likely to demand significant investment in the near future. He said he’s been pushing Buffalo Civic Auto Ramps to beef up its reserve fund to pay for repairs. The fund ought to have $5 million in it, he said, and currently has $2.5 million. He said that’s something any bond investor “with good common sense” will want to see those reserves bolstered before backing the authority’s purchase of the ramps.
“If I was buying those bonds, there would be a reserve established on day one,” he said.
The cost of borrowing
Fabian, of the Municipal Market Analytics firm, concurred with Termini’s assessment.
He said he believes it’s possible the new authority could raise $40 million from a bond sale for the ramps. He stressed, however, that maintenance costs, the structure of the bond and other factors could reduce the amount the authority can raise.
“Bond holders are going to worry about what happens if it breaks,” he said. “Those things are always falling apart. They’re a maintenance nightmare.”
If the new authority issues a bond based on the parking revenue alone, Fabian said, it could face a high interest rate, reducing the amount it’s able to raise. Defaults on parking revenue bonds are common, he said, so the cost of borrowing is high.
Conversely, he said, if the city agrees to guarantee the authority’s debt in the event of major maintenance or a significant reduction in revenue, the authority likely can get a lower interest rate. But that means the city would have to step in should the authority default on the bonds.
If the city can’t come up with cash to service the authority’s debt, Fabian said, bond holders could demand the authority and the city sell the ramps to a private entity.
Nosworthy, the finance commissioner, said the $42 million he wrote into the city’s four-year financial plan is a conservative figure drawn from Buffalo Civic Auto Ramps’ calculations. He said the city has hired outside firms to conduct title and survey work — the first steps toward a true assessment of the ramps’ value on the municipal bond market.
“It’s all estimates right now. There was no actual valuation,” he said. “If the valuation comes in differently, we can always adjust that money in out years, as far as what those payments are.”
No paperwork, just stonewalling
Investigative Post began seeking records related to the valuation of the parking ramps in May. The outlet sought two categories of records:
- Property value assessments performed by the city, Buffalo Civic Auto Ramps or a third party.
- Entries from Scanlon’s and Deputy Mayor Brian Gould’s daily calendars related to the valuation of the ramps and formation of the parking authority.
For months, the city ignored the request, in violation of state law.
In July, Investigative Post appealed the city’s lack of response. That appeal went unanswered.
In August, Investigative Post appealed the lack of response again, this time with the assistance of an attorney from the Cornell Law School’s First Amendment Clinic. In response, Corporation Counsel Cavette Chambers asserted there were no records to share.
Investigative Post then questioned Will Mathewson, a city attorney, about his office’s response.
“We sought what you sought: valuations and related records, and calendar entries,” Mathewson replied in an email. “I am aware that the relevant City personnel have confirmed there are no records to provide, and Corporation Counsel issued her appeal decision on that basis.”
Mathewson in subsequent correspondence affirmed what Nosworthy said: “Any numbers referenced for sale of the ramps were estimates, not recorded valuations.”
Donate to support our nonprofit newsroomAs for records of meetings on the subject, Nosworthy said such meetings with Scanlon did occur. “We meet as a group to discuss the progress, obviously,” he said. But Mathewson said no calendar entries exist.
Spokespeople for Scanlon — Mike Read and Gould, the deputy mayor — did not respond to requests for comment for this story.
The lack of information and communication has irked city lawmakers.
Fillmore District Council Member Mitch Nowakowski, who chairs the Council’s Finance Committee, told Investigative Post he intended to hold up Scanlon’s appointments to the new authority’s board until the acting mayor shares documents showing how the plan will work.
“I have had apprehensions from the start of this process and growing concerns about how the evaluations of these ramps are being processed,” he said.
Nowakowski said that if the sale doesn’t go through by next July, or if it brings in less money than the Scanlon administration has predicted, the city could be forced to dip into its emergency stabilization fund to meet operating expenses.
The so-called “rainy day” money — intended to be keep the city running in the event of an emergency — is the only reserve fund the city has left to tap. If the rainy day fund won’t cover the resulting hole in the budget, there could be cuts to city staff and services.
“Risky evaluations are a serious concern,” he said.
