Acting Buffalo Mayor Chris Scanlon is claiming that inaction from the city comptroller is preventing over $110 million in capital investments. Scanlon, surrounded by groups that were slated to receive funds as part of his proposed 2025 capital budget, bashed the comptroller on Wednesday for not issuing bond anticipation notes.
Those notes are necessary to unlock additional investment opportunities and to move along long-term projects. Acting Mayor Chris Scanlon sees Comptroller Barbara Miller-Williams' delays as a protest of the budget.
“I want to be very clear about something. This is not about the availability of funding. This is not about project readiness. This is about inaction, an action that is unacceptable to the progress our city desperately needs,” Scanlon said.
Speaking with Scanlon was Larry Scott, a vice president on the Buffalo Board of Education, who also condemned the comptroller's process. Scott indicated that Buffalo Public Schools stands to miss out on crucial infrastructure repairs if funds from the capital budget are not disbursed.
“Who stands in the way of lead abatement in our schools?” Scott said. “Such resistance and political posturing do not occur in our suburban districts and schools, and for our suburban students. Why is it happening in the city?”
Miller-Williams responded to the criticism with a nine-page packet outlining the communication she’s had with the Scanlon administration regarding the delay. The comptroller claims that her 2024-25 estimate and report filed on August 1 of last year laid out a $28 million debt cap, and that Scanlon’s $110 million capital budget drastically exceeded that amount.
She claimed both BPS and the city failed to submit a Capital Improvement Projects Priority List that would outline projects with the $28 million cap. Miller-Williams, however, agreed to submit a bond anticipation note for $7 million in various streetscape projects, including for the Cars on Main Street project, which had a presence at Scanlon’s press conference earlier in the day.
