100 Search Results for sewer

Aug 14

2023

City authority hires Mayor Brown’s son

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The Buffalo Sewer Authority hired a new press information officer in April, but neither the agency nor the mayor’s office will talk to reporters about who he is or how much he’s paid. But payroll records and authority meeting minutes tell the story: It’s Mayor Byron Brown’s son. The minutes of the May meeting of authority’s board directors indicate Byron Brown II was hired in April at an annual salary of $62,665. His home address is listed as 14 Blaine, which is the mayor’s house. The authority’s payroll records show Brown II earning $2,161 as his biweekly base pay when[...]

Posted 9 months ago

Jul 31

2023

City earning millions on unspent federal relief funds

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Mayor Byron Brown’s slow rollout of federal Covid relief funds has infuriated social welfare organizations and Common Council members, who have been waiting two years for the money to start flowing into the community. But the delay has a silver lining, if only for the mayor’s bean-counters: millions of dollars in unexpected interest income. For the budget year that ended June 30, the Brown administration had forecast $100,000 in interest income.  The city’s actual interest earnings, as of July 1: $13.8 million. Delano Dowell, the city’s finance commissioner, confirmed that the windfall is primarily the result of more than $215[...]

Posted 10 months ago

Apr 30

2023

Monday Morning Read

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Subscribe to our WeeklyPost newsletter and you’ll get Jim Heaney’s recommended reading – and a whole lot more – in your inbox Sunday mornings. The deal to build the Titans a new stadium in Nashville (the current venue is only 24 years old) will involve a larger upfront taxpayer handout than the deal here in Buffalo. The daily paper down there has the details, The Buffalo News compares the deals and Neil deMause of Field of Schemes offers his analysis.  He also reports on a new deal in Calgary to build a $1.2 billion arena for the NHL Flames. Meanwhile, The Toronto Star reported that the Ottawa Senators, a[...]

Posted 1 year ago

Oct 25

2022

City holding millions in other people’s money

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The City of Buffalo took in $4.3 million from its annual auction of tax-delinquent properties in 2019, the year the Brown administration changed how it handles the money those foreclosure sales generate. Out of that $4.3 million, the city paid itself $700,000 to account for the back taxes and fees that led the properties to the auction block.  That left $3.6 million is surplus, much of which rightfully belongs to the individuals who lost their properties to foreclosure. For them, the money represents their remaining equity after all their creditors — the city, the banks, the utility companies — are[...]

Posted 2 years ago

Oct 19

2022

Federal dollars could help re-tree East Side

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The City of Buffalo spends a lot of money — $568 million this budget year.  Most of it is spent on cops and firefighters. Very little is spent on planting and maintaining trees, which play an important role in the health of city residents. In fact, the city’s population of trees is shrinking, as two trees are cut down for every one that is planted. Help could be on the way, however.  The federal government has earmarked $1.5 billion under the Inflation Reduction Act to pay for the planting and maintenance of trees in urban centers. The money will be[...]

Posted 2 years ago

Sep 19

2022

No relief for local taxpayers on Bills stadium

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Erie County Executive Mark Poloncarz likes to say the new stadium deal he and Gov. Kathy Hochul cut with the Buffalo Bills gets the county “out of the football business.” The deal, however, does not get the county out of the business of paying for a football stadium.  The county’s annual costs for the Bills current home, Highmark Stadium, have ranged from $10.7 million to $12.6 million in recent years.  Estimates provided to county lawmakers for paying off bonds to cover the county’s share of new stadium construction have come in lower, between $7.7 million and $9 million annually. The latest[...]

Posted 2 years ago

Jul 11

2022

City Hall puts off day of financial reckoning

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The COVID pandemic has been very good for the City of Buffalo’s finances. Pandemic relief funds from the federal American Rescue Plan have been a tremendous boon. You can see that money at work right now in city streets and parks. It’s going to help pay for water and sewer projects, as well as micro-loans to small businesses and the expansion of broadband internet access. It helped keep poor city residents in their homes. Most important for city government has been revenue replacement money — cash the federal government sent to make up for revenue the city claims it lost[...]

Posted 2 years ago

Apr 10

2022

Monday Morning Read

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Below is the latest “What I’m Reading” portion of our email newsletter that publishes every Sunday. You can subscribe for free here. Let’s discuss “opportunity costs” for a few minutes. An opportunity cost is when you spend money on something at the expense of spending it on something else. An example: You’ve got $100 to spend. You put it towards a nice dinner rather than, say, buying a new winter jacket. That said, the decision by state — and soon, county officials — to spend $1.13 billion to build and maintain a new stadium for the Buffalo Bills involves a huge opportunity[...]

Posted 2 years ago