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The Child Care Crisis: History and Examples from Across the United States
Song Lee — Sep 3, 2024
This report by Community Foundation for Greater 2024 Buffalo High Road Fellow, Song Lee shares the history and status of child care in the United States. The report defines the care economy, analyzes the child care crisis, reviews past federal and state efforts for universal child care, and proposes potential solutions.
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The Rich Don't Pay But You Do: The City's Free Rides for the Rich, An Analysis of City of Buffalo Property Tax Revenue
Our City Buffalo, Kevin Connor — Jun 15, 2024
The City of Buffalo is facing a significant financial crisis – including a projected gap of $41 to $55 million next year – that could have a major destabilizing impact on the city and its residents in the coming years. Significant cuts to city services and further property tax and fee increases are likely looming. The city’s residents could see a further deterioration of essential services like snow plowing and street and sidewalk maintenance even as they are asked to pay more …
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The True Cost of Child Care: Erie County NY (Final Report)
Lou Jean Fleron, Russell Weaver, Catherine Creighton — Oct 26, 2022
Funded by Erie County and supplemented with New York state funds allocated to the Cornell ILR Buffalo Co-Lab, the study builds on the Phase One report issued earlier this year and analyzes data on the child care industry and workforce for both Erie County and the state.
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Workers on the Brink: Low-Wage Employment in Buffalo and Erie County
Nicole Hallett Apr 12, 2018
In 2017, Professor Hallett, winner of a public research fellowship from Open Buffalo and PPG, conducted a survey of 213 workers in Buffalo to learn more about the challenges they are facing.
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HUD Report on Buffalo Community Development Block Grant Program
Edgar Moore — Dec 13, 2011
Audit report from Edgar Moore to William O'Connell.
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Generating Waste: Problems with NYPA and the IDAs and How to Solve Them
Robert Grimaldi Oct 1, 2011
New York State is spending billions of dollars on economic development programs without reaping significant public benefits. Too often the State is subsidizing sprawl, pollution, and poverty level employment. An examination of the State’s two largest economic development programs, the industrial development agencies and the New York Power Authority, reveals numerous problems – but also ready solutions that will save the taxpayers money and lead to real, sustainable …
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The Erie Canal Harbor Development: Building on Community Assets for a Sustainable Future
Carrie Weremblewski Apr 21, 2009
This policy brief frames the redevelopment of the Erie Canal Harbor as a tool for building on our existing assets and addressing our chronic challenges. Ultimately, development of this vital and historic district will be accomplished on public land and with additional public resources and subsidies. As such, Buffalo's Inner Harbor redevelopment, like and development receiving public funds, should have clear and achievable goals that advance public purposes.
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IDA Reform
Sam Magavern — Mar 9, 2009
Thank you for the opportunity to comment on IDA reform. I teach at the University at Buffalo Law School in the areas of affordable housing and community economic development. I am submitting these remarks on behalf of the Partnership for the Public Good (PPG). PPG has united over 40 Buffalo-area non-profits around a 2009 Community Agenda, which includes this plank regarding subsidy reform: Reform New York State’s Subsidy Programs New York State should reform its major …
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Missing the Target
Sam Magavern, Daniel Webster, Anthony Armstrong — Feb 6, 2009
Buffalo is the nation’s third most impoverished city. Buffalo’s East Side and West Side neighborhoods are two of Buffalo’s most impoverished areas. If any two neighborhoods are in need of economic development, it is these two. And yet, despite spending billions of dollars on economic development programs each year, the State, County, and City have largely ignored these neighborhoods and their increasingly desperate residents. Programs, funds, and …
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Sprawling by the Lake: How IDA-Granted Property Tax Exemptions Undermine Older Parts of the Buffalo/Niagara Metro Area
Allison Lack — May 1, 2007
An examination of the geographic distribution of property tax exemptions given to businesses in 2005 by the nine state-regulated Industrial Development Agencies (IDAs) in the Buffalo/Niagara metro area reveals they have subsidized job creation outside of the region’s oldest, most densely populated and most transit-accessible areas, despite the fact those areas are most in need of jobs and reinvestment. The exemptions’ sprawling, pro-suburban bias is especially evident in Erie …