Categories for In-Depth

Jun 4

2024

Falling short on foster care

Published by

Illustration by Christine Ongjoco.  This story is being co-published with The Imprint, a national nonprofit news outlet covering child welfare and youth justice. Where Kin Come First: The Imprint’s analysis of New York child welfare agencies’ reliance on family and friends reveals where children end up depends a lot on geography. Part one of a two-part series. Six years ago, the federal government made a dramatic shift in the way it funds foster care. Instead of only paying states after they removed children from parents accused of abuse or neglect, local authorities could be reimbursed to avoid family separation through[...]

Posted 8 months ago

May 27

2024

Buffalo’s fiscal reckoning

Published by

  Buffalo Common Council President Christopher P. Scanlon. Photo by Garrett Looker. Buffalo’s Common Council took some of the sting out of the mayor’s proposed property tax hike last week, at least for residential homeowners.  Legislators knocked Mayor Byron Brown’s 9 percent tax increase to 7.5 percent, with most of the relief directed to residential homeowners. But city dwellers shouldn’t rest easy. Taxes likely will continue to rise in the years to come. “This tax increase is nothing compared to what’s going to happen in the future,” Niagara District Council Member David Rivera said last week.   “We should have been[...]

Posted 8 months ago

May 16

2024

A lot of time (422 days) and money ($50,493.50)

Published by

Photo illustration by Garrett Looker. Fifty-thousand, four-hundred ninety-three dollars. And fifty cents.  That’s how much a New York state agency paid an Albany law firm to review and redact records about the Tesla factory in South Buffalo before releasing them to Investigative Post. It took the agency 14 months to fulfill the Freedom of Information Law request. “I think it’s outrageous,” said Paul Wolf, president of the New York Coalition for Open Government. “It’s outrageous to spend $50,000 on an outside attorney to process one FOIL request. And this is for a project that has already received $959 million in[...]

Posted 8 months ago

May 15

2024

Who’s responsible for dysfunctional jail oversight board?

Published by

Erie County Sheriff John Garcia. Photo by Garrett Looker. The Erie County Bar Association, the sheriff and the Legislature haven’t filled vacancies on a jail advisory board that hasn’t been able to conduct business for lack of a quorum. Meanwhile, prisoners are dying, prompting lawsuits and millions of dollars in settlements and verdicts. Tasked with overseeing the jail and recommending improvements, the Corrections Specialist Advisory Board hasn’t been able to review jail deaths, consider plans for a new jail or even approve a 2023 annual report that remains in draft form. The 11-seat board, which has three vacancies, is supposed[...]

Posted 8 months ago

May 8

2024

Dismissed Buffalo cop had history of complaints

Published by

A Buffalo cop fired for dousing a woman with pepper spray and falsifying reports to justify his actions was the subject of nine inquiries into allegations ranging from rudeness to excessive force. Seven investigations came during Kevin Murphy’s last two years of active duty. In addition, a city parking enforcement officer whom Murphy threatened and berated complained in 2022, while Murphy was on paid leave pending termination for pepper spraying Lekisha Neal and falsifying reports. Other complaints included an allegation that Murphy had beaten a teenager while arresting him on suspicion of robbery. The department could not determine the truth[...]

Posted 9 months ago

Apr 25

2024

Reading scores lag across WNY

Published by

Editor’s note: This is the first of a two-part series. Our second story is here.  It’s not just Buffalo where students are struggling to read and write. Only 39 percent of third through fifth graders in Western New York’s 99 school districts scored at grade level on recent English Language Arts tests. What’s more, 31 percent of students lack even basic reading and writing skills. In some districts, including Buffalo and Niagara Falls, that figure approaches or exceeds 50 percent. The problems extend from the city to the countryside, urban neighborhoods to suburban cul de sacs, according to an Investigative[...]

Posted 9 months ago

Mar 14

2024

Mortgage lending lags to Black applicants in Buffalo

Published by

This is the first of two stories on the impact of lending practices on homeownership by Black residents in Erie and Niagara counties. The second story, outlining possible solutions, is here. Black applicants are twice as likely to be denied a home mortgage as the overall population in Erie and Niagara counties, an Investigative Post analysis has found. What’s more, the region’s 18 percent rejection rate for Black applicants in 2022 was higher than in all but a handful of other major metro areas nationally.  The gap between the denial rate for Black applicants and the overall mortgage denial rate[...]

Posted 10 months ago

Mar 5

2024

Lawsuit accuses Erie County Sheriff of stonewalling

Published by

Erie County Sheriff John C. Garcia. Photo by Garrett Looker. The Erie County Sheriff’s Office is being sued for jail records. Again. The Partnership for the Public Good, which asked for records last May, filed suit in December after its request for documents for the downtown holding center and Alden lockup was refused. It’s the third time since 2018 that the sheriff’s office has been sued over jail records. In the two previous cases, courts ordered the sheriff’s office to provide requested documents.  “They don’t give up stuff they should give up,” said Nan Haynes, who sued the sheriff in[...]

Posted 11 months ago
Investigative Post