The Buffalo Common Council once again approved last minute amendments to the city’s federal American Rescue Plan spending, Monday - just a day before deadline.
The eleventh-hour vote altered some of the amendments the council approved just last week when they voted to roll $19 million previously allocated to initiatives such as arts groups and community center repairs into the city’s revenue replacement fund instead.
Monday's special session saw the council approve a reversal of $2 million of that cash back to ARP contracts due to an accounting oversight. Acting Mayor Christopher Scanlon said the existing contracts were previously executed but were not entered into the city’s accounting system.
"We discovered this as a result of the staff, under my directive to double, triple, quadruple check all of these contracts," Scanlon told the council. "I can tell you that if that had not happened, there would be a lot more money that either would have been going back to the federal government, or we would have had to try to move to revenue replacement."
The four contracts were signed by previous Mayor Byron Brown and were for the African American Cultural Center ($1M), The Colored Musicians Club ($500,000), Torn Space Theater ($250,000) and the Centro Culturale Italiano Di Buffalo ($100,000).
The vote passed 6 to 1, with Councilmember Rasheed Wyatt in the negative and Councilmember Mitch Nowakowski absent.
All four organizations are expected to receive their cash.
This latest amendment to the ARP spending plan means that $17 million in ARP funds previously allocated to pandemic recovery initiatives will plug budget gaps instead. Scanlon said the funds would be used for future payroll for City of Buffalo employees, including Police, Fire and Public Works staff.
In 2021 the city was awarded $331 million in federal ARP money to support the recovery from the COVID-19 pandemic. The city had to obligate the funds before Dec. 31 to comply with federal rules. Any funds left on the table after that date would have to be returned to the federal government.
Majority Leader Leah Halton-Pope lamented the last-minute nature of proceedings over the past two weeks, and called them "rushed."
"I think this is how we end up with the mistake that happened," she said.
In the weeks before the deadline it was revealed that at least three organizations will not be receiving ARP funds previously promised to them because contracts could not be completed in time - Ujima Theater, King Urban Life Center and the Buffalo and Erie County Naval and Military Park - a situation Wyatt called "grinch-like."
"It is grinch-like. You made an agreement, you pull it back," he said.
However when pressed by Halton-Pope, Scanlon told the council on record "we will get those organizations their funding."
It will have to come from a source other than the federal ARP money.
