Tag: City Hall

Oct 24

2023

Mayor’s half-baked paid leave report

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Last month, Mayor Byron Brown promised his administration would begin issuing “a comprehensive report encompassing all employees on paid leave” for each biweekly pay period. Investigative Post obtained a copy of the first such report last Thursday, a week after it was distributed to department heads on Oct. 12.  It is hardly comprehensive. The report indicates more than 1,400 city employees across 15 departments — about half the city workforce — took some sort of paid leave during the pay period covering the last two weeks of September. The report identifies the employees by name and department, and identifies the[...]

Posted 6 months ago

Oct 10

2023

Fire clerk still not working, but getting paid

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Jill Repman was called back to her job with the Buffalo Fire Department last month after seven and a half years on paid leave that cost taxpayers nearly $600,000. She immediately went on vacation, according to city payroll records.  Repman used four days of her accumulated vacation time to extend the paid Labor Day holiday to a full week. The following Monday, she called in sick.  Then she took a couple personal days, followed by another sick day, followed by another personal day. All told, Repman — formerly known by her married name, Parisi — didn’t work a single day[...]

Posted 7 months ago

Sep 26

2023

How many City Hall employees being paid not to work?

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The comptroller’s office has launched an investigation to determine how many city employees are on paid leave, why and for how long, and how much it costs taxpayers, according to the city’s chief auditor, who testified Tuesday before the Common Council’s Civil Service Committee. The comptroller’s inquiry is a response to Investigative Post’s report on Jill Repman, formerly Jill Parisi, an administrative assistant for the Buffalo Fire Department who was on paid leave for seven and half years. The city has paid Repman nearly $600,000 since suspending her in 2016, when she was accused of tampering with the department’s payroll[...]

Posted 7 months ago

Sep 21

2023

Podcast: Chasing a phantom city employee

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Jill Repman — formerly known as Jill Parisi — has been paid more than a half million dollars since being accused of tampering with the fire department payroll in 2016. The allegation against her was never resolved and she’s worked at a private-sector job while continuing to collect a check from the city. Investigative Post’s Geoff Kelly sat down with host Garrett Looker to discuss his weeks-long search for Repman, or at least answers from anyone who would be willing to talk. Watch via YouTube or listen as a podcast.  

Posted 7 months ago

Sep 19

2023

Council member requests audit of workers on paid leave

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A Buffalo legislator wants to know how and why a clerk in the city’s fire department was kept on paid administrative leave for seven and half years, collecting nearly $600,000 not to work. Fillmore District Council Member Mitch Nowakowski also wants the city’s comptroller to find out how many similar situations are hidden in the city’s payroll. Nowakowski, chair of the Council’s Civil Service Committee, filed a resolution Monday asking Comptroller Barbara Miller-Williams to perform an audit to find out how many city employees are being paid to stay at home, why, and for how long — and what the[...]

Posted 7 months ago

Sep 14

2023

City Hall clerk paid not to work

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In February 2016, the City of Buffalo accused a clerk in the fire department of tampering with the payroll in order to pad her checks. Since then the former Jill Parisi — now appearing on city payroll records under her maiden name, Jill Repman — has collected well over a half million dollars while on paid administrative leave, awaiting a resolution to the disciplinary charges against her. For six of those seven-and-a-half years, she has held a second job in the private sector, managing payroll for a local healthcare company. According to the city’s law department, there was never any[...]

Posted 7 months ago

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 8 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 9 months ago
Investigative Post

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