Tag: City Hall

Oct 7

2025

Pushing again for lead inspections in Buffalo

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From left: Matthew Parham, Daniel Corbitt, Sarah Wooton, Dawn Wells-Clyburn and Alex Fehrman Updated Monday at 4:49 p.m.  A group of tenants and community organizations on Tuesday appealed the dismissal of a lawsuit that sought more vigorous enforcement of a City of Buffalo program aimed at lead hazards in rental housing. The Partnership for the Public Good along with three other organizations and four tenants filed a lawsuit last July  in State Supreme Court against the city. The lawsuit alleged that the Department of Permits and Inspections was failing to provide a clean and healthful environment for its residents by[...]

Posted 4 days ago

Sep 30

2025

Buffalo’s Housing Court: Fewer fines, lax collections

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The City of Buffalo over the past six years has failed to collect $6.5 million in Housing Court fines that could help to address the city’s budget deficits.  Since January 2020, Housing Court judges have issued $7,024,200 in fines, according to data Investigative Post obtained from the New York State Office of Court Administration. The city has collected $481,500, or 8.5 percent of the fines issued. And between 2017 and 2019, the city failed to collect another $6.8 million in Housing Court fines, according to city records. That’s more than $13 million the city has left on the table over[...]

Posted 2 weeks ago

Sep 25

2025

Overtime straining Buffalo’s budget

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Two-and-a-half months into the city’s current fiscal year, overtime for Buffalo’s police and fire departments is on track to run $10 million over budget, threatening once again to push the city into deficit. That’s a smaller cost overrun than the city has seen in previous years, but nonetheless a problem for a city whose growing costs, stagnant revenues, and lack of reserve funds leave officials no room for error as they implement this year’s $622 million spending plan. Police and fire headquarters in downtown Buffalo. Photo by I’Jaz Ja’ciel. Fillmore District Council Member Mitch Nowakowski, who chairs the Council’s Finance[...]

Posted 2 weeks ago

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[...]

Posted 4 weeks ago

Sep 11

2025

Buffalo forfeits more than $1 million in federal lead funds

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Signage in a lead abatement training facility. Photo by I’Jaz Ja’ciel. The City of Buffalo will return more than half of a $2 million federal grant it received in 2021 for lead hazard remediation. Investigative Post in May reported that the Buffalo Urban Renewal Agency had spent only about a quarter of its Lead Hazard Reduction Program grant funded by the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development. BURA officials told Investigative Post in a statement that “the program remains in progress” and that $796,050.71 in grant funds have been earmarked or spent on lead remediation. That’s $300,000 more than[...]

Posted 1 month ago

Aug 13

2025

Scanlon administration ignoring records request

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Acting Mayor Chris Scanlon’s administration is once again violating the Freedom of Information Law. The latest example: For more than three months, City Hall has ignored a FOI request for documents related to the proposed sale of the city’s parking ramps. Scanlon wants to sell four downtown parking structures to an independent authority in a bid to close budget gaps. City Hall ignoring requests for public records has proven to be a pattern. Earlier this year, the Scanlon administration ignored a request for Scanlon’s daily calendar until Investigative Post appealed. Those records ultimately revealed Scanlon had held meetings where the[...]

Posted 2 months ago

Aug 7

2025

City contractor violates law, is awarded new work anyway

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Over the span of two days in July, the City of Buffalo issued a fine to its primary street paving contractor for violating local law, then awarded the firm three new contracts worth millions. On July 7, according to a letter written by former Department of Public Works Commissioner Nathan Marton, the city issued D&H Paving a $22,214 fine for failing to hire and pay apprentices appropriately on a 2022 paving contract. The following day, July 8, the Common Council voted unanimously on a slate of three paving contracts, all awarded to D&H Paving because the firm was the lowest[...]

Posted 2 months ago

Aug 6

2025

Police overtime in July unabated

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One month into the city’s fiscal year, the City of Buffalo’s efforts to rein in the cost of police overtime have not manifested any savings. In the first two paychecks issued in the month of July, the city paid cops more than $1.9 million in overtime, according to city payroll data. Total pay for police in the pay periods covered by those checks was nearly $8.5 million. In July 2024, police overtime cost a little more than $1.8 million out of $8.2 million total. The July before that, it was $1.6 million out of nearly $8 million total. In other[...]

Posted 2 months ago
Investigative Post