Categories for In-Depth

Dec 15

2020

Sliver of companies got half of pandemic aid

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A lot of businesses received forgivable loans from the federal government to help them through the pandemic. To be exact, 18,768 in the eight counties of Western New York. The loans were worth $2.2 billion, altogether. But a fraction of the companies — some 5 percent — received about half that sum.  Two businesses got the maximum $10 million loan allowed under the Paycheck Protection Program: Ferguson Electric and the Buffalo Medical Group. New Era Cap, widely criticized by public officials earlier this year for taking PPP money then laying off 117 employees, received the third-largest loan, $8.4 million. Other[...]

Posted 4 years ago

Dec 14

2020

Doctors and lawyers cash in on pandemic aid

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The final numbers are in: the federal government poured more than $2 billion into the local economy this spring and summer in an effort to blunt the economic impact of the coronavirus pandemic. About 19,850 for-profit companies and nonprofit organizations in the region’s eight counties received $2.4 billion in loans under the Paycheck Protection Program. The loans, convertible to grants, ranged from $10 million to less than $1,000. As a group, no one secured more money than doctors. Other top recipients include restaurants, lawyers, car dealers, skilled nursing facilities and construction contractors. Three recipients received $10 million, the maximum allowed[...]

Posted 4 years ago

Dec 10

2020

Tech firm leaves Buffalo students in a lurch

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After nearly two years of doubts and delays, Buffalo Public Schools is canceling a contract to provide free wireless internet to some of the district’s neediest students.  The reason: HarpData, the company the district hired to do the job, is going out of business. An attorney for HarpData, Joseph Makowski, confirmed that CEO Ivory Robinson Jr. is “winding down” the company’s operations. Staff has been laid off. The company’s offices on Delaware Avenue in downtown Buffalo remain under lease, Makowski said, but are closed for business. As a result, the beleaguered Connected Communities initiative — a $1.3 million project meant[...]

Posted 4 years ago

Dec 3

2020

City Hall spending on police has skyrocketed

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The Buffalo Police Department’s budget has grown at three times the pace of other city services since Mayor Byron Brown took office in 2006, an increase fueled largely by the cost of health insurance and pension payments for current and retired cops. The city spends 54 percent more on police than it did 15 years ago. Meanwhile, spending across all other city departments has increased just 17 percent. That’s less than two-thirds the rate of inflation. In inflation-adjusted dollars, the city’s spending on police has effectively defunded other city services.  The city spends less today than it used to on[...]

Posted 4 years ago

Nov 11

2020

Record low employment in Buffalo Niagara

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The coronavirus pandemic has stripped Buffalo-Niagara of so many jobs that the region employs fewer people in the private sector than it has in at least 30 years. The metro area was down 46,000 private sector jobs in September, compared with a year earlier. That amounts to a 9.6 percent drop. That leaves the labor market with 431,300 full- and part-time jobs. “It’s the smallest private-sector workforce in 30 years, by a good deal,” said E.J. McMahon, senior fellow at the Empire Center for Public Policy, who conducted the jobs analysis for Investigative Post. Heaney discusses his story on WBEN[...]

Posted 4 years ago

Oct 18

2020

Notorious lieutenant wants a new assignment

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 Lieutenant Michael DeLong, suspended for calling a woman a vile name outside of a West Side convenience store this summer, wants a transfer from his command position in the city’s downtown police precinct. One of his two preferences is an assignment to a command position with the unit that investigates sex crimes, where the victims are predominantly women.  In addition to his suspension this summer — for calling the woman a “fucking cunt” — the department suspended DeLong in 2018 for an incident described on his disciplinary card as “conduct-off duty domestic.” DeLong has also put in for a[...]

Posted 4 years ago

Sep 17

2020

Working for $1 a day

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The company that oversees people held at the immigration detention center in Batavia exploits detainees by paying them $1 a day to perform menial labor, according to a lawsuit filed in state Supreme Court.  The lawsuit, filed Sept. 3, stops short of saying the detainees are forced into doing the work, but suggests that there’s an implicit threat of consequences if they refuse. The practice of assigning work to detainees, a longstanding Immigration and Customs Enforcement initiative known as the “Voluntary Work Program,” violates the state constitution and labor law, the suit contends. The company, Akima Global Services, or AGS,[...]

Posted 4 years ago

Jul 28

2020

City Hall inertia on one-sided police contract

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Reforming the Buffalo Police Department will require changes in the labor contract between the city and its police union. Major changes. An analysis by Investigative Post found the contract — a behemoth of a document comprising nearly 400 pages of agreements, amendments, arbitration awards and memoranda — is decidedly one-sided in favor of the union. It makes it tough to discipline officers accused of misconduct and deprives the police commissioner of management rights that are a given in many other departments. Investigative Post also determined that the administration of Mayor Byron Brown, who has lambasted the union contract, has never[...]

Posted 5 years ago
Investigative Post