Tag: City Hall

Dec 6

2023

City employee retires after years on paid suspension

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The Buffalo Fire Department clerk who spent seven and a half years on paid leave — costing taxpayers nearly $600,000 for no work — has retired. Officially, Jill Repman’s last day on the job was Nov. 30, according to the Office of the State Comptroller.  In reality, she hasn’t done a lick of work for the fire department since accused of wrongdoing in January 2016 and suspended with pay. Even after being ordered back to work in September, Repman used vacation days and other paid time off to avoid coming to work before filing for retirement. It’s been nearly eight[...]

Posted 1 year ago

Nov 30

2023

City will repair building, won’t evict hostel — yet

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Hostel Buffalo-Niagara lives on. For now. Over two dozen board members and supporters of the institution attended an emergency meeting held by the Buffalo Urban Renewal Agency Thursday morning to determine the future of the hostel at its current location.  The BURA board voted unanimously to approve renovations to 664 Washington St. — a building attached to the rear of the hostel, which faces Main Street — not to exceed $2 million in cost. The structure, owned by BURA since 2002, was cited earlier this year by both the city and an engineering report for posing extreme safety hazards to[...]

Posted 1 year ago

Nov 28

2023

Spending more on settlements than services

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The City of Buffalo will borrow $43 million to settle a lawsuit brought by a woman rendered a quadriplegic after a police officer hit her with his patrol car more than three years ago. It is the largest payout for a personal injury lawsuit in the city’s history. The city’s top attorney called it “unprecedented.” A city lawmaker called it “catastrophic.” With interest, the total cost of the settlement could approach $50 million, based on current lending rates for municipal bonds, adding nearly $10 million to the city’s annual debt service over each of the next five years.  That’s an[...]

Posted 1 year ago

Nov 20

2023

License plate readers target minority neighborhoods

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Buffalo police have quietly installed license plate readers at 41 intersections in the city, two-thirds of them located in neighborhoods populated predominantly with people of color.  Buffalo police, in response to a Freedom of Information Law request for the department’s policies on license plate readers, wrote that they’re used for “law enforcement investigative purposes only.” While it’s unclear how the department now is using readers, police in the past used mobile readers to issue traffic tickets, at considerable profit to the city.  Unlike many other cities, neither the police nor Mayor Byron Brown, their commander in chief, have made the[...]

Posted 1 year ago

Nov 17

2023

Neglected building threatens Theater District hostel

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The city’s only hostel, which hosts some 6,000 travelers a year in the Theater District, is facing the prospect of eviction because an adjacent city-owned building is in danger of collapse after years of neglect. Recent inspections by the city and an engineering consultant found the vacant, rear section of the hostel building has deteriorated to the point that it could jeopardize the structural integrity of the hostel. The rear building, which faces Washington Street, is separate but attached to the hostel building at 667 Main St.  Hostel Buffalo-Niagara is across the street from Shea’s Performing Arts Center, two doors[...]

Posted 1 year ago

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 1 year 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 2 years 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 2 years ago
Investigative Post