BUFFALO, N.Y. — Officials with the city of Buffalo met with members Buffalo Fiscal Stability Authority (BFSA) this week to discuss using $41M of unobligated American Rescue Plan Funds to fix the budget deficit.
Acting Mayor Chris Scanlon's office confirmed the acting mayor was part of the meeting, alongside Administration, Finance, Policy & Urban Affairs Commissioner Delano Dowell.
Scanlon's office, after requests by 2 On Your Side, wouldn't confirm that $41 million is still available.
2 On Your Side tried to ask acting Mayor Scanlon about the ARPA funds after an ECMC event on Thursday, but his staff said he was unavailable for questions.
The only thing acting Mayor Scanlon's office has said on the matter is that "the City of Buffalo is looking at every avenue to address budget shortfalls in this budget year.”
The BFSA confirmed that as of Nov. 1, $41M of the ARPA funds were unobligated — meaning the contracts hadn't been finalized to release the money to the groups it was promised too.
As for the budget deficit, the BFSA for months has indicated the gap could be anywhere between $15 million and $30 million. Neither the Scanlon Administration nor the BFSA have confirmed if recent deficit projections indicate anything higher than what had been previously reported.
The plan to use the unobligated ARPA funds is not on the agenda for the next Common Council meeting, but it could be added as a late-file right before the meeting. One of the frustrations of the Common Council is that the Brown administration would often file agenda items at the last minute, especially if it was a topic that was likely to generate debate.
It remains to be seen if the executive chamber of city hall will add a late-file about ARPA funding to the Nov. 26 meeting, but the Council will need to approve any changes to ARPA spending plans.
Right now, many of them aren't thrilled with the idea.
"I'm going to be quite frank with you, I don't think that we did the things that we should have been doing," University District Councilmember Rasheed N.C. Wyatt said. "We didn't utilize the American rescue dollars in the appropriate manner to help us be in a more fiscally sound situation."
Wyatt, and other members of the council, say they weren't given a heads up by the administration that this could be a possibility.
"I didn't even hear that until I saw it in the news the other day," Wyatt said.
The University District councilmember says the council and administration can't keep kicking the can down the road, and not having ARPA funds in the future will be a concern.
"I think that going forward, we're probably in a more bleaker situation than we are wherever before, because I don't believe the new administration coming in is going to be sympathetic to folks in these our communities," Wyatt said. "I'm very concerned about how we do this."
Fillmore District councilmember Mitch Nowakowski said that "the council already approved these dollars, so to then retract it is wrong."
The city has to obligate the ARPA funds by the end of the year, otherwise they can be clawed back by the federal government.
Right now, because the administration hasn't provided specific details, it's unclear which groups that were promised those funds, will ultimately wind up with nothing.
According to city hall sources, it is possible some of the un-obligated funds could be released if contracts are finalized, but time is not on the side of everyone involved.