May 23
2018
Susan Arbetter quizzes Investigative Post Editor Jim Heaney on The Capitol Pressroom about a recent iPost story on gold-plated health insurance benefits provided by the Buffalo school district. Heaney also touched on the recent guilty plea involving the awarding of the contract to develop the SolarCity factory.
May 17
2018
Most retired employees of the Buffalo school district receive a benefit not enjoyed by their counterparts in suburban school districts – lifetime health insurance. And not just any old health insurance, but about the best money can buy. This coverage, provided to an average of about 4,200 retirees, including teachers and administrators, doesn’t come cheap. The bill for the budget year that is winding down is a projected $66 million. That’s more than the $64 million the district is spending on health insurance for active employees. One parent leader criticized the spending in light of the district’s subpar graduation rate.[...]
May 6
2016
The Capitol Pressroom broadcast interviews Thursday and Friday with Investigative Post Editor Jim Heaney. Topics of discussion included the Buffalo Billion scandal, the ramifications of this week’s School Board elections, and efforts by City Hall and Erie County officials to deal with Buffalo’s lead poisoning problem. The interview that aired Thursday starts at the top of the program and runs to 13:07. The Friday interview runs from 13:09 to 22:35.
Mar 14
2016
Buffalo is doing better, but is it doing as well as the politicians and much of the local press would have us believe? The answer, in a word, is “no.” That was the bottom line to my address Feb. 24 at the Burchfield Penney Art Center. Progress has been overstated. There’s a lot of racial inequality. We’re a high-crime city where few criminals get caught. And Buffalo is a ward of the state. Charlotte Keith and I dug deep into the data to provide a factual, statistical framework on which I based my conclusions. Here they are, in a nutshell:[...]
Feb 28
2016
Charlotte Keith reported last week about the lack of diversity in local trade unions. Minorities account for 17 percent of the workforce in Erie County, but only 11 percent of membership of 18 building trade unions. What’s more, that number has barely budged over the past decade, despite a pledge by the unions to dramatically diversify their membership. A fair amount of the blame falls to the unions, but there’s plenty of blame to go around. Unions and community groups that recruit and train minority job candidates generally don’t get along. They accuse each other of a lack of communication.[...]
Nov 9
2015
Investigative Post Editor Jim Heaney told Steve Brown that Kriner Cash made a favorable first impression during their interview last week. “He’s no-nonsense, he’s knowledgeable, he’s taking on the job with a sense of urgency and I think he made it very clear that he’s here to get a job done and he’s not going to put up with a lot of guff,” Heaney told Brown on Sunday’s installment of Outrages & Insights. Brown asked Heaney if Cash can succeed. It depends, Heaney said, on whether recent changes made in state education law are interpreted to grant the superintendent the[...]
Oct 15
2015
Susan Arbetter of Capitol Pressroom interviews Investigative Post Editor Jim Heaney about the state of the Buffalo public school system. Interview aired Thursday on 20 public radio stations across upstate, including WBFO.Heaney will conduct a live interview of Buffalo School Superintendent Kriner Cash at a Nov. 4 luncheon sponsored by Investigative Post. Tickets can be purchased online.
May 15
2015
A longer school day. More freedom for schools to make their own decisions. Redefining success through alternative paths to graduation. Those were among the issues panelists discussed at a happy hour event Wednesday sponsored by Investigative Post. Asked what one thing they would change about the city’s schools, all three speakers mentioned more autonomy for schools in how they hire, budget and use testing standards. Strong centralization might have been necessary in the past to create accountability, said William Kresse, principal of City Honors School. “Now it’s on us: let us do the work,” he said. David Rust, executive director of Say[...]