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Jim Heaney
The economy of Western New York, like those of most regions upstate, lags behind most of the nation. Government’s response, at both the local and state level, has been in large part to throw tax breaks and other subsidies at companies in an effort to attract or retain them.
It hasn’t worked.
In the interview below, Investigative Post Editor Jim Heaney discusses economic development with Greg LeRoy, executive director of Good Jobs First, a nonprofit that tracks subsidy programs across the nation. LeRoy is considered a leading expert in his field and is frequently quoted by Investigative Post.
Here are six key takeaways from the interview, which is followed by a full transcript of the conversation between LeRoy and Heaney.
- The upstate economy is among the worst in the nation.
“If you cleave off upstate New York and treat it as a separate state, it’s right down there with Mississippi and some other impoverished states in terms of its economic performance for the last three or four decades.”
- Subsidies usually don’t determine a company’s decision.
“We don’t think subsidies work because they are way too often given to companies to do what they would have done anyway, as opposed to an incentive, which is to create something good that should happen but isn’t happening and won’t happen until public dollars reduce private risk.”
Studies, LeRoy said, have found subsidies make deals happen that otherwise wouldn’t only 6 to 25 percent of the time.
- Erie and Niagara counties have way more industrial development agencies — nine — than most places.
“You’re way off the reservation … I can’t think of another situation in another metro area where you’ve got that many overlapping bodies. It’s a really dysfunctional system.”
“You’ve got competing bureaucracies that can pirate each other and call it economic development. And you’ve got needless duplication of services.”
- Economic development efforts should be consolidated and focused on the region as a whole.
“The meaningful unit of competition in economic development is not the city, it’s not the suburb. It’s the labor market. It’s the metro area. That’s the way the structure of economic development should be physically configured as well.”
- There are more effective strategies than corporate subsidies to promote economic growth.
“Workforce development grants, incentives to create career ladders, to move people up. Continuous learning incentives all the way down to early childhood, pre-K — all those things are proven winners.
- LeRoy’s suggested strategies for reviving the Western New York economy:
“First of all, abolish the IDAs. Create one unified public body in-house, led by elected officials, that oversees economic development for the metropolitan area.”
“Get rid of the perverse incentives to give away the tax base.”
“Announce tomorrow that the share of the property tax that otherwise would go to schools is not on the table anymore. That’s shielded to buttress the school system, because the talent pipeline means everything. The number one site-location advantage for attracting any kind of employer these days is your skilled labor pipeline, and your future skilled labor pipeline.”
“Forget about the megadeals.”
“Take very aggressive stock of what’s here right now … There’s companies here that have promise … Grow your own.”
“I’m reminded as I rode here today about the beautiful housing stock you have in the city, although obviously a lot of it’s ailing, right? A lot of it needs to be weatherized. A lot of it needs to be made much more energy efficient. The decarbonization and efficiency retrofit business here should be going gangbusters.”
Here’s the transcript of the whole interview.Jim Heaney, Investigative Post: Do subsidies actually create jobs and grow the economy well?
Greg LeRoy, Good Jobs First: The word subsidies is a specific choice for us, as opposed to the word incentive, which is what the official press likes to use, and officialdom likes to use a lot.
We don’t think subsidies work because they are way too often given to companies to do what they would have done anyway, as opposed to an incentive, which is to create something good that should happen but isn’t happening and won’t happen until public dollars reduce private risk.
I mean, if you’re talking about bringing a grocery store to a food desert, or giving a person returning to citizenship from incarceration new skills, or things like that — those are incentives. The private marketplace isn’t going to do that, and we applaud those uses of helping small businesses, etc.
IP: So politicians love subsidies.
LeRoy: They do.
IP: And companies that receive them love them. And a lot of press coverage that’s generated around tax breaks and other subsidies kind of follow this narrative of, we need to do this in order to create jobs, save jobs, grow our local economy. Where did that narrative come from?
LeRoy: So that narrative was born in New York State, in New York City, specifically, in the late 1930s, with the birth of a company called Fantus — originally the Fantus Factory Locating Service — founded by a guy who had left his father-in-law in Chicago and started the first site location consulting business. He basically helped thousands of companies over the next several decades run away from the Northeast and the Midwest to the South, and in some cases offshore.
The system that Fantus created — this guy named Leonard Yaseen and his employees — basically it’s a corporate-dominated structure to control the narrative. That is, companies never actually reveal what made the decision. The public just knows that companies are asking for a lot of money, and one community gets lucky and gets the jobs, even if they put too much money on the table. Because nobody really knows what was in the company’s mind, what was in the real decision-making matrix.
IP: Although there’s been research done, academic research that’s been done, that tries to get at that question. You know, how often would a company have done it anyways? What has that research shown?
LeRoy: So our two favorite academics in that space are Peter Fisher, now retired from University of Iowa, and Timothy Bartik from the Upjohn Institute in Michigan. They found in the range of six to 25 percent — at the very generous outbound of those deals — actually did result from the incentives. The other 75 to 94 percent were windfalls.
IP: So it’s just adding the company’s bottom lines.
LeRoy: We think that’s all too often the case.
A sampling of Investigative Post’s subsidy coverageSubsidy deal costing $4 million per job
IDA tax breaks costing school districts millions of dollars
Subsidies fail to recharge upstate economy
Fourteen tax breaks for profitable defense contractor
Huge subsidy package for Amazon
Tesla’s solar factory in Buffalo fizzles
Allegations of wage theft at subsidized restaurants
Subsidies for market rate apartments
IDAs have “perverse incentive” to issue tax breaks
Little economic benefit from Bills new stadium
IP: How has the nature of the game changed over the years? You mentioned what began in the ’30s. What’s been the evolution? Or perhaps “de-evolution” would be the better word. How’s the whole game changed?
LeRoy: Well, you know, with the advent of the internet, the site location consulting industry exploded because the barriers to entry crashed. There’s now 300-plus site location consulting firms out there.
Some of them work just in specific industries or regions. There’s a whole site selectors guild that actually sells face time for itself at golf retreats and ski resorts for public officials to come schmooze with people who have their pulse on the thinking of companies that are looking for their next big deal.
IP: So let’s talk about sectors that should never be subsidized — Amazon — and perhaps the types of companies where a subsidy might actually make sense.
Let’s talk Amazon, because … you’ve done a lot of work on Amazon. You know the Niagara County IDA a couple years back gave them one of the biggest subsidy packages that they’ve received, which is saying a lot.
What’s the story on Amazon? They’re masters at getting subsidies. Are they the poster children for people who should not be getting subsidies?
LeRoy: Amazon is the classic case of a company that is getting paid to do what it [would] do anyway.
This dates back to 2012, when the business plan was changing from avoiding sales tax, which had been their big way of gaining market share for many years, to rapid delivery. And when they switched to rapid delivery, they could no longer avoid being forced to collect sales tax because they had to build warehouses. They had to have a physical presence in every state, including those majority of states that have sales taxes in them.
So instead, they said, “We’re job creators. Let’s get paid to build these warehouses.”
And they hired a veteran site location consultant named Michael Grella within their public policy department, which had been their tax-dodging department. And he went on a binge, which to this day continues. They’ve gotten hundreds of incentive deals for data centers and offices. But more numerous are the warehouse deals, including the $124 million from Niagara [County].
And you know, they’re just eating everybody else’s lunch in the retail space. And they’re putting warehouses close to affluent ZIP codes with the most prime households. We have an interactive story map on our website that shows you that it’s really predictable.
IP: So in other words, these warehouses have to be where they have to be in order to promote next-day delivery.
LeRoy: Or even same-day.
IP: So they’re going to do what they got to do, regardless of whether or not they’re going to get subsidies. But everybody’s lining up to give subsidies.
LeRoy: Yeah. The new book, The Everything War by Dana Mattioli, chronicles how one official who was the CEO of Toys R Us in New Jersey, as it was getting driven into bankruptcy by Amazon, was screaming at then Governor Christie, saying, “Why are you giving them warehouse subsidies? They’re eating our lunch. We employ tens of thousands of people in your state because we’re headquartered here. Why? Why would you do this?” And Christie just ignored him.
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IP: Let’s talk about maybe the sectors or types of companies where a subsidy might make sense. And let me draw a distinction trying to keep a company in the United States versus offshoring jobs, compared with the kind of War Between the States — and really, in New York in particular, battles from communities against each other within the same region. As you know, we’ve got a multitude of IDAs.
LeRoy: You people have eight IDAs in the two-county metro area!
IP: How unusual, how far off the reservation are we, with eight IDAs s in a two-county area?
LeRoy: You’re way off the reservation. You’re right up there with Westchester County.
IP: In terms of New York State or across the country?
LeRoy: In terms of New York State. I can’t think of another situation in another metro area where you’ve got that many overlapping bodies. It’s a really dysfunctional system you’ve got here, Jim.
IP: What’s the problem with it?
LeRoy: So you’ve got competing bureaucracies that can pirate each other and call it economic development. And you’ve got needless duplication of services, right? I mean, if a company needs help from an IDA, why should it need to go shopping?
There should just be one for the metro area, one for the labor market.
Look, here’s the real answer to your question, Jim. The meaningful unit of competition in economic development is not the city, it’s not the suburb. It’s the labor market. It’s the metro area. That’s the way the structure of economic development should be physically configured as well.
IP: Is that the way it’s done outside of New York State for the most part? Or does it vary?
LeRoy: It varies. Obviously some states have much more powerful county governments, in which case, counties are big dogs, even if it’s a multi-county metropolitan area.
For example, I live in a county in Maryland that has almost a million residents, and there’s just one government for my county, and they do all the economic development. And it’s a very rational, efficient process.
IP: But Greg, there’s much less patronage to dispense one government.
LeRoy: That’s true.
IP: Let’s talk about Micron. They’re planning on building a large plant north of Syracuse with billions of dollars worth of subsidies. It’s not just the feds, but the state and local [governments] are throwing a lot of goodies their way as well. Was there a better way to do that deal?
LeRoy: I think so. Uncle Sam is paying a lot of money for these microchip plants. They’re paying production credits for the microchips, which will shower that company with billions of dollars in refundable corporate income tax credits —cash from Uncle Sam, essentially. The same is true of a lot of battery and EV facilities.
The official guidance — the official notice of funding opportunities that came out from the Department of Commerce — said in fine print that nobody paid any attention to, “We want local governments and state governments to incentivize these facilities.” But they said, “Don’t give the money directly to the company. Use it to make your place sticky for tech. Work on your workforce development strategies, your talent pipeline, your infrastructure supporting tech” — on the public goods, in other words, that will benefit lots of employers that you want to try to gain around these big facilities.
IP: Is New York doing that?
LeRoy: I can’t see it. I mean, I know there’s a lot of feel-good stuff going on in Clay, north of Syracuse. And I’m sure there’ll be a lot of spillover effects, because there’ll be a lot of employer suppliers, and there’ll be a lot of disposable income resulting from those jobs.
I’ll put it this way. We have a coalition called Chips Communities United, and we’re watching the behavior of Micron in New York and Intel in Ohio, and TSMC, the Taiwan semiconductor manufacturing company in Arizona.
In the spectrum of things, Micron is being really quite agreeable. They’re engaging a lot with the community. They’re actually open to talking to everybody there and running a big house. The opposite is true of TSMC in Arizona, for example.
IP: So in that way, maybe we’re doing a little bit better.
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What are the subsidies that tend to get the best bang for the buck, the best return on investment for taxpayers? And which ones are just dogs?
LeRoy: Workforce development grants, incentives to create career ladders, to move people up. Continuous learning incentives all the way down to early childhood, pre-K — all those things are proven winners.
If you talk to people like Timothy Bartik, if you talk to people like the former vice president of Federal Reserve Bank, whose name I can’t remember right now, who’s been studying the data on this for a long time about our comparative ROIs, those are the big winners.
At the other end of the spectrum are film production tax credits, which your state has now obligated itself to another $700 million on. Or $7 billion — $700 million a year for 10 years.
Even though these production jobs are union — and we acknowledge the International Association of Theatrical and Stage Employees are very big on these programs — there’s no credible research from any place showing that any state has ever gotten back more than 20 cents on the dollar for film production tax credits. They are just guaranteed massive losers.
IP: Do taxpayers ever get a return on their investment that’s equal to what they put in? In other words, does a government ever wind up collecting more in taxes than they laid out in subsidies?
LeRoy: I think there you can go back and look at some deals — even some fairly expensive deals in the early days of the auto industry, for example — where one could argue that taxpayers did make out over time.
By today’s standards, like the Toyota deal in Georgetown, Kentucky, or the Nissan deal in Smyrna, Tennessee — they look really cheap by today’s standards. Or the Mercedes deal in Alabama. These are all back in the late ’80s and early ’90s.
IP: But most deals these days are losers?
LeRoy: The price tag on so many of these big deals today is so high, we just don’t think they can ever break even.
IP: Good Jobs First has done a lot of research in New York State.
LeRoy: It’s a target-rich environment.
IP: So why your interest and what strikes you about New York State? Good, bad or otherwise?
LeRoy: So in our subsidy tracker database, we pay special attention to individual facility deals worth more than $100 million in public money.
IP: Megadeals.
LeRoy: We call them megadeals.
And ever since we’ve started collecting them, two states have stood out as the king and queen of megadeals, and they are New York and Michigan. Two Rust Belt states, so-called, paying a lot of money for retention, especially. And depending on how you slice the data, whether it’s dollars or deals, they are one and two.
So you’ve always been a big spending state.
And then obviously you’ve got the extreme situation of all the companies that have threatened to leave Manhattan, you know, from the ’70s through the ’aughts — threatening to move to Jersey City or Greenwich, Connecticut, and shaking down several mayors for eight- and nine-figure packages to get paid to stay in Manhattan.
And then you’ve got the corruption of the IDA system.
As we know from recurring studies from the Fiscal Policy Institute — when they do The State of Work in New York — if you cleave off upstate New York and treat it as a separate state, it’s right down there with Mississippi and and some other impoverished states in terms of its economic performance for the last three or four decades.
IP: We did a report that you’re actually quoting. If upstate New York was a separate state, making 51 states in the country, our economic growth was fourth worst in the country. We were below Mississippi.
LeRoy: And I lay that at the feet of your IDAs.
IP: What are they doing wrong?
LeRoy: Well, they’re just structured wrong. For example, you shouldn’t have eight of them in one metro area. You shouldn’t have five of them in Rochester. You shouldn’t have whatever the number is in Westchester County — six or eight, or whatever it is.
There should be unified bodies per labor market, which is, I say again, the meaningful unit of competition and economic development.
But also, you know, they’re hammers looking for nails, right? They just do tax breaks. And as we said in a recent study, they — their staffs and their consultants, their law firms — have monetary self-interest in giving away more tax breaks because they take a cut of those transactions and transaction fees, which comprises 80 to 100 percent, typically, of their revenue base for their payrolls.
IP: In other words, if they don’t approve the deal, they don’t get any money.
LeRoy: Correct. And the other big structural problem here — which we have always, always said — is the power to give away tax breaks should never reside with anybody who can’t be held accountable at election time. Because when you give away these tax breaks, you’re making budget decisions, and that’s an elected official’s responsibility.
IP: And the entities that suffer the most are school districts in the form of lost tax revenue, correct? Talk about that.
LeRoy: So we estimated a year ago that schools across the state lose $1.8 billion a year annually to tax abatement programs. New York City loses the most by far, but it’s an epidemic. You’ve got seven school districts in the state losing more than $5,000 per student per year, even after the payments in lieu of taxes, even after the offsetting payment.
IP: That’s a lot, when you consider average per-student spending in New York State, depending on the district, is $20,000 to $35,000.
LeRoy: That’s a big chunk. You could do a lot with that.
IP: How is New York state when it comes to transparency on economic subsidy deals
LeRoy: It’s better than average. Unusually, your state transparency portal captures a lot of data from all the IDAs. I know there’s a history behind that and an active role of your state comptroller’s office.
But it means that, compared to most states, your state transparency portal — and we capture all that data conveniently in subsidy tracker, and even enhance it for users — you get all that local tax break data too. That’s only true in a few other states, like Louisiana and Ohio, historically.
IP: Another big dispenser of subsidies is the state’s economic development agency, Empire State Development. Any particular insights on ESD?
LeRoy: No, I haven’t looked at them recently. I mean, obviously we’ve got past — was it Start-up New York? Was that the other crazy idea of the Cuomo administration that we knew from the get-go was a turkey?
But no, I haven’t looked at them recently. I’m sure they played a big role in the Micron deal.
IP: How should one measure the effectiveness of a subsidy deal? We kind of wrestle with that as journalists. The standard — because it’s easy to calculate — is cost per job. But that’s not always a good barometer, because are we talking a cost per job of a part-time, low-wage job, or are we talking a high-wage, high-benefit job. If you’re a policy-maker or a taxpayer or a reporter, how do you effectively measure the effectiveness of a subsidy package?
LeRoy: Well, so a couple things. One is, was there a means test, so to speak, to even qualify the company. Did the structure of the program — like bringing a grocery store to a clearly defined food desert — was there an eligibility hoop through which the deal had to jump that you can reasonably assume meant that you’re actually causing something to happen that wouldn’t have happened otherwise?
All too few programs meet that anymore. That’s the first question you need to ask. Because if that’s true, then facially, you’re in the good zone, right?
Then cost per job is not a bad metric to start. But then you have to go immediately to the other issues — the ripple effect issues there. And there’s two kinds of ripple effects. There’s upstream, which is to say, the inputs, the suppliers, right?
So we incentivize a data center — not much upstream, besides electricity. It’s not like an auto parts plant where engines and brakes and windshields are getting delivered every day. It’s the opposite of that, in terms of upstream inputs.
And then downstream is your buying power of the direct jobs. If it’s a poverty-wage job, you’re not enabling somebody to buy a home or eat out a lot or stimulate the economy. But if it’s a unionized job in the building trades or manufacturing, and it’s good enough to support a family and stimulate the economy, then you can make better assumptions about ripple effects.
IP: Here’s the big question I wanted to ask you. So you’re the economic development czar of metropolitan Buffalo, and you have unlimited powers to bring back our economy. Western New York went through a really hard time in the ’80s. We were probably hit as hard as anybody in the Rust Belt, with the closing of heavy manufacturing — steel plants, auto plants, whatever. And we’ve been trying to catch up ever since.
We’re doing better than we were, but our economy still lags. Our wages, compared nationally, lag. We have an older workforce. We’re not a headquarters town at all. We’re a satellite town. And you’ve got competition between the states, competition within New York State.
So you’re the czar. What do you do? What’s your advice to policy-makers in Albany and in Buffalo? How to bring this economy truly back? There’s a lot of talk about how we’ve had an economic renaissance, and again, we’re doing better than we used to. But as Jim Morrison once sang, I’ve been down so long that it looks like up to me. So, you know, these days look up, but it’s from the perspective of the dark days of the ’80s.
What would you do if you were in charge?
LeRoy: I’m glad you asked that question in a semi-long-winded way, because I’m sitting here reeling, trying to think of my 10-point program here.
Obviously, first of all, abolish the IDAs. Create one unified public body in-house, led by elected officials — that oversees economic development for the metropolitan area. Not privatized, no perverse incentives to give away the tax break.
Announce tomorrow that the share of the property tax that otherwise would go to schools is not on the table anymore. That’s shielded to buttress the school system, because the talent pipeline means everything. The number one site-location advantage for attracting any kind of employer these days is your skilled labor pipeline, and your future skilled labor pipeline.
And then I would say, “Forget about the megadeals. Stop the buffalo hunting. Look to what you’ve got now.”
I know there’s lots of companies that have been here for a while. I know there’s companies here that have promise. I know you’ve got major research universities here doing great research that could be commercialized and create intellectual property that may create jobs in the future.
I mean, just take very aggressive stock of what’s here right now.
I also think you’ve got this gift of the cheap hydropower, but I don’t know that it’s being harnessed or used in a way.
I’m reminded as I rode here today about the beautiful housing stock you have in the city, although obviously a lot of it’s ailing, right? A lot of it needs to be weatherized. A lot of it needs to be made much more energy efficient. The decarbonization and efficiency retrofit business here should be going gangbusters. This would be an enormously attractive place to live if there are more jobs and if those homes could be energy efficient.
Those two strategies together could be a big advantage for Buffalo, because you’ve got more affordable housing than a lot of markets because of the depressed economic condition. That housing could become a big magnet if there are both jobs and energy efficiency here,
IP: We’ve had an older workforce. When you look in comparison with other metro areas, we’re not doing great when it comes to high-tech jobs and stuff like that, in terms of the new economy with younger people. Anything in particular you would do in that area?
LeRoy: I think place-making, and also cluster analysis. And maybe, hopefully, somebody is already doing this here, right?
But in trying to figure out one’s niche opportunities in high tech, you have to ask yourself, “Where do we already have some advantage?” Either we’re over-represented in some industry already, or we have the potential to be because of our research capacity, or our existing small business space, or whatever. Then work with that and invest in the public goods to support that.
It might be export promotion or quality control or technology diffusion or customized training, or all the above, right? That’s how you build a cluster of small companies that grow rapidly. They’re called gazelles. You want to figure out where your gazelle is and create a system of public goods that nurtures those gazelles — knowing that not everyone will make it, but once one fails, the people will be able to go across the street or across town and work for one of the competitors in the same cluster, because you’ve got a winning cluster. That’s the strategy.
IP: We’re on a Canadian border. We’re an hour-and-a-half from Toronto, which is one of the five largest metro areas/regional economies in North America. Do you see any opportunities for us there?
LeRoy: I hadn’t thought about that, but there must be. I don’t know the answer to that. I don’t know what kind of trade already crosses the border every day or what opportunities present themselves. But yes, okay, why not?
IP: Anything I haven’t asked you that is on your mind? You exhausted my list, but the floor is yours.
LeRoy: Obviously I know a lot of sports fans like the Bills, but we were also very critical of the proposed stadium deal that Governor Hochul and the legislature came through with. We don’t spend a lot of energy on stadiums and Good Jobs First, because — like film production tax credits — everybody knows they’re not really economic development.
I understand they’re important to municipal egos and people’s entertainment diets. But it’s another issue of, like, what else could you have done with that much money?
IP: Opportunity cost.
LeRoy: Back to basics. Quit the buffalo hunting. Abolish the IDAs. Make the policy adherent to people who can be held accountable at election time. Get rid of the perverse incentives to give away the tax base and grow your own.
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There’s just one week left until the Democratic primary fro Buffalo mayor, the marquee race this election season.
In the last month, Investigative Post’s government and politics reporter, Geoff Kelly, profiled four of the five candidates on the ballot: state Sen. Sean Ryan, University District Council Member Rasheed Wyatt, former Assembly staffer Anthony Tyson-Thompson and former Buffalo Fire Commissioner Garnell Whitfield.
In January Kelly wrote a three-part profile of the fifth candidate, Acting Mayor Chris Scanlon.
Editor Jim Heaney last week sat down to ask Kelly his impressions of the candidates and the contest.
The candidates and their issues Acting Mayor Chris Scanlon: Profile and stance on the issues. * State Sen. Sean Ryan: Profile and stance on the issues. * University District Common Council Member Rasheed Wyatt: Profile and stance on the issues. * Anthony Tyson-Thompson: Profile and stance in the issues. * Former Fire Commissioner Garnell Whitfield: Profile and stance on the issues.*
Scanlon’s pitch, Kelly said, is basically that he’s hit the ground running as acting mayor, he’s young and energetic, and he wants a chance to show voters he’ll be different than his political ally and predecessor, Byron Brown. Also, he says Ryan’s 2021 endorsement of the Democratic nominee for mayor, India Walton, indicates Ryan is “too extreme for Buffalo.”
Ryan — who has the Democratic Party endorsement — argues city government has suffered from bad leadership for 20 years, and that leadership included the acting mayor. If voters want someone new, who also has a lots of experience in politics and government, he says, then he’s that guy. Also, he says Scanlon’s support from Republican developers like Nick Sinatra and the Paladino family, among other right-wingers, should give Democrats pause.
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Wyatt, the University District lawmaker, was a critic of the Brown administration, and he’s kept up that critique during Scanlon’s eight months in office. He’s been kind of a lone wolf on the Council since his ally Darius Pridgen steeped down from the Council presidency, and he presents that as a virtue, according to Kelly. Wyatt says it shows he’s independent, that he’s speaking up for the people’s interests.
Kelly said Tyson-Thompson, a former aide to Assembly Majority Leader Crystal Peoples-Stokes, comes across as young and smart, Kelly said. He has master’s degrees from Harvard and Columbia and a diverse resume, but not a lot of experience in government. With little name recognition and less money to change that, he’s not likely to win — but look for him to come back and run for elected office again.
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Whitfield isn’t really selling any one policy position or solution to city problems, Kelly said. Instead he’s asking voters to consider his reputation for honesty and integrity. He says he’s not beholden to any political or financial interests, while the frontrunners millions in campaign cash and endorsements indicate they’re bought and paid for. He says he’s in the best positions to fix City Hall because he knows its intimate workings, having spent 20 of his 34 years in the fire department in administration, including seven years as commissioner.
Early voting in the race began Saturday and continues through Sunday, June 22. Primary election day is Tuesday, June 24.
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Jill Repman — formerly known as Jill Parisi — has been paid more than a half million dollars since being accused of tampering with the fire department payroll in 2016. The allegation against her was never resolved and she’s worked at a private-sector job while continuing to collect a check from the city.
Investigative Post’s Geoff Kelly sat down with host Garrett Looker to discuss his weeks-long search for Repman, or at least answers from anyone who would be willing to talk.
Watch via YouTube or listen as a podcast.
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Investigative Post’s I’Jaz Ja’ciel and Garrett Looker have reported on the state of literacy and access to books throughout Buffalo. Literacy experts say parts of the city’s East Side are “book deserts.” In this latest episode of Investigative Post’s Reporter’s Notebook, Looker and Ja’ciel talk about their months-long analysis of library data and book access.... View Article
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This week, Investigative Post’s Geoff Kelly sat down with Ken Kruly, a political analyst who examines the ebbs and flows of campaign finance in Western New York. In this latest episode of Investigative Post’s podcast series, Kelly and Kruly take a look at the funding for candidates vying for the Buffalo Common Council and Erie... View Article
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Last week, Investigative Post’s J. Dale Shoemaker reported on tax subsidies distributed by industrial development agencies — subsidies that deprive school districts of millions of dollars each year. In this latest episode of Investigative Post’s Reporter’s Notebook, host Garrett Looker sat down with Shoemaker to talk about his months-long analysis into how tax subsidies are... View Article
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https://www.investigativepost.org/wp-content/uploads/2023/05/Reporters-Notebook_Clover_AUDIO.mp3
Two weeks ago, Investigative Post’s Geoff Kelly reported on allegations of “racist and illegal practices” by one of the region’s biggest real estate development and management firms. In a federal lawsuit, a former employee accused the company of racially profiling communities where it was thinking of building senior housing complexes.
Clover executives were caught on audio discussing the practice, using the code word “Canadians” to refer to Black people and “the Canadian factor” to describe the company’s reluctance to build in communities where the population was more than 20 percent Black.
We followed with a profile of Clover’s civically and politically engaged president, Michael Joseph, as well as a piece on whether his apparent move to Florida disqualified him from his long standing role as chair of the Roswell Park Cancer Institute. J. Dale Shoemaker added a report on the millions of dollars in taxpayer subsidies Clover has received over the years.
All this scrutiny led to Joseph’s resignation from Roswell’s board last week.
In this latest episode of Investigative Post’s Reporter’s Notebook, host Garrett Looker sat down with Kelly to discuss our reporting on Clover, Joseph’s subsequent fall from grace, and what other shoes are likely to drop in the coming weeks and months.
The post Podcast: iPost reporting on Michael Joseph appeared first on Investigative Post.
https://www.investigativepost.org/wp-content/uploads/2023/03/Reporters-Notebook_Common-Coucil-Candidates_AUDIO_March-30-2023.mp3
One thing is certain: Buffalo’s Common Council will soon change.
Two members of the current Council — Council President Darius G. Pridgen of the Ellicott District and Masten District’s Ulysees O. Wingo — will not seek re-election. Several candidates are looking to fill those seats, gathering signatures to earn a spot in the June Democratic primary election.
There are other candidates looking to challenge Council incumbents, as well. Investigative Post’s Geoff Kelly took a closer look at the candidates and how Buffalo’s Common Council may change.
Kelly sat down with Garrett Looker, host of Reporter’s Notebook, to dive into who the candidates are and what they are running for. Here, Kelly touches on which races to keep an eye on, uphill battles, and the struggles of getting on the ballot.
Watch via YouTube or listen as a podcast.
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https://www.investigativepost.org/wp-content/uploads/2023/02/Newsmakers_Sean-Ryan-IDA_AUDIO_Feb.-9-2023.mp3
Throughout the State of New York, industrial development agencies give out tax breaks to companies in order to bring and expand operations to local communities. From entities as large as Amazon to as small as an A&W restaurant, these deals usually involve companies paying reduced property and sales taxes over an extended period of time.
But, as Investigative Post’s J. Dale Shoemaker has reported, those deals can have expensive consequences for the community; including its children. Those expensive consequences include nearly $2 billion drained from public schools each year throughout the state. New York State Senator Sean Ryan believes these “speculative business deals” are trading away children’s futures.
Shoemaker sat down with the senator to talk the business of economic development and how it may be hurting communities.
Watch via YouTube or listen as a podcast.
The post Podcast: Sen. Sean Ryan discusses IDA reform appeared first on Investigative Post.
https://www.investigativepost.org/wp-content/uploads/2023/01/Reporters-Notebook_Tesla-Solar_AUDIO.mp3
When plans were announced for a solar panel manufacturing plant in South Buffalo, then-Governor Andrew Cuomo described the project as a “game changer.” Based on the promise of not only a gleaming new plant and more than 1,400 jobs, but a whole new clean energy sector that would employ thousands more. Cuomo poured nearly $1 billion of state tax dollars into building and equipping the project.
Has it delivered as promised?
Investigative Post’s J. Dale Shoemaker dug deep to answer that question. Officials from Tesla refused requests for interview. Bureaucrats with the state economic development agency that oversees the project did the same. They went further, slow walking requests for records submitted under the Freedom of Information Law.
Read our full report on the Tesla project
Documents revealed thousands of pages of records and emails, many of them culled from a lawsuit shareholders had filed against Tesla CEO Elon Musk. More answers came through interviews with Tesla employees and industry analysts.
Shoemaker’s conclusion: Tesla has not delivered as promised.
He sat down with Garrett Looker, host of our podcast series, to talk about his reporting.
Watch via YouTube or listen as a podcast.
The post Podcast: Reporting on Tesla’s solar factory appeared first on Investigative Post.
The Buffalo Police Department is under fire of criticism from local activists, alleging racial and civil discrimination.
Officers’ frequent use of racial slurs, including the “N-word,” and unequal, discriminating policing efforts in different neighborhoods are two of thr allegations levied in a lawsuit by Black Love Resists in the Rust.
Geoff Kelly has reported on the lawsuit the Buffalo Police Department faces, including officer misconduct and potential oversight from the Department of Justice.
Kelly sat down with Garrett Looker, host of our podcast series, to talk about his reporting.
Watch via YouTube or listen as a podcast.
https://www.investigativepost.org/wp-content/uploads/2022/12/Reporters-Notebook_Police-Conduct_AUDIO.mp3
The post Podcast: Reporting on police misconduct appeared first on Investigative Post.
Investigative Post is wrapping up its tenth year in business. Founder and editor Jim Heaney and Geoff Kelly, our senior reporter, look back on the decade and what it’s meant for Investigative Post and local news outlets. This is a companion to Heaney’s post of earlier this week, a Report to Readers.
Watch or listen to the podcast here, or check it out — along with dozens of other stories and interviews — on our YouTube channel.
https://www.investigativepost.org/wp-content/uploads/2022/12/iPost_Podcast_10_Years_Fixed_AUDIO.mp3The post Podcast: Reflecting on 10 years of iPost appeared first on Investigative Post.
The windows and doors of a West Side house are boarded up, debris scattered throughout the yard.
Inside, two individuals have died, their bodies left to decay.
The dilapidated house at 149 Arkansas St. has been the source of numerous calls to emergency personnel. Its owners have been hit with multiple housing code violations and thousands of dollars of unpaid summons.
Local residents have said the property’s owner, the Buffalo Police Department, and City Hall have skirted accountability.
In their stead, the residents of Arkansas Street are left to deal with the property’s effects, including the stench of a decaying corpse from inside.
Since September, Investigative Post’s I’Jaz Ja’ciel has followed the story of the house at 149 Arkansas on Buffalo’s West Side. Ja’ciel sat down with Garrett Looker, host of our podcast series, to discuss her reporting.
You can watch the interview via our YouTube channel or listen to it as a podcast.
https://www.investigativepost.org/wp-content/uploads/2022/12/Reporters-Notebook_149-Arkansas-AUDIO.mp3
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In the coming weeks, Erie County officials are poised to allow the future Buffalo Bills’ stadium effectively to skip New York State’s environmental review law. Activists and experts say doing so results in a lack of transparency and little consideration for the environment.
The deal’s major players — Erie County Executive Mark Poloncarz and the Buffalo Bills organization — would not offer further details. Their silence fits a pattern of stonewalling. Investigative Post has successfully sued Erie County and New York State to obtain public records before, and continues to be met with little communication.
Community groups have called for more transparency from Poloncarz and New York State Gov. Kathy Hochul. Still, the state and county refuse to answer basic questions.
For the past several weeks, Investigative Post’s J. Dale Shoemaker has been uncovering details of how the proposed stadium may impact the environment. After combing through over a thousand pages of documents, questions were left unanswered.
Shoemaker sat down with Garrett Looker, host of our podcast series, to discuss his reporting. You can watch the interview via our YouTube channel or listen to it as a podcast.
https://www.investigativepost.org/wp-content/uploads/2022/12/Reporters-Notebook_Environmental-Stadium-AUDIO.mp3The post Podcast: Lack of transparency around Bills stadium appeared first on Investigative Post.
On Thursday, Investigative Post reported on the number of eviction warrants issued in Buffalo City Court, more than 3,700 this year alone. Across Erie County, primarily in Buffalo, landlords have moved to evict tenants in numbers greater than anywhere else in the state, save for Kings County, which encompasses Brooklyn. Reporter I’Jaz Ja’ciel sat down... View Article
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On today’s Investigative Podcast, reporter J. Dale Shoemaker sits down with journalist and author Alec MacGillis to talk about Amazon’s expansion in Western New York, the future of Rust Belt cities like Buffalo and MacGillis’s book, “Fulfillment: America in the Shadow of Amazon.” MacGillis’s book explores how Amazon and other large companies have transformed American... View Article
The post Podcast: How Amazon wins tax breaks appeared first on Investigative Post.
Tom Toles is the most decorated journalist in the history of Buffalo news media. He cut his teeth as an editorial cartoonist at The Courier-Express, moved on to The Buffalo News, where he earned his Pulitzer in 1990, and then succeeded the legendary Herblock at The Washington Post in 2002. His work was syndicated in... View Article
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Geoff Kelly recently interviewed U.S. Rep. Brian Higgins about a variety of topics, including national politics, the Tops massacre and the Jan. 6 insurrection. The Congressman’s response, in so many words, involved what he sees as division. We posted the first half of the interview on Friday. You can watch that first part via our... View Article
The post Podcast: Interview with Brian Higgins, part 2 appeared first on Investigative Post.
Geoff Kelly recently interviewed U.S. Rep. Brian Higgins about a variety of topics, including national politics, the Tops massacre and the Jan. 6 insurrection. The Congressman’s response, in so many words, involved what he sees as division. You can watch the first part of the interview via our YouTube channel or listen to it as... View Article
The post Podcast: Interview with Brian Higgins appeared first on Investigative Post.
On Tuesday, Investigative Post reported on the huge subsidy package Amazon is receiving to build a warehouse in Niagara County. Amazon will receive $124 million in tax breaks from the Niagara County Industrial Development Agency, plus state tax credits of at least $2 million. In exchange, Amazon will employ 1,000 people, most earning $15 an... View Article
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The math of Byron Brown’s loss in the June 22 Democratic primary is simple. The mayor’s traditional base of voters on the East Side stayed home, while voters on the other side of Main Street — from the Lower West Side and Allentown to the Elmwood Village — turned out in comparatively high numbers and […]
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The post Politicians who keep their campaign cash appeared first on Investigative Post.
Ken Kruly and Geoff Kelly discuss the self-funding practices of local judicial candidates. They also talk about the latest in the Mark Grisanti saga: an investigation by the state Commission on Judicial Ethics into Grisanti’s handling of a 2018 case argued by attorneys who owed him money.
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Ken Kruly and Geoff Kelly discuss the current topic of Money In Politics, large campaign contributions by Jon, Jerome and Jeffrey Williams of Niagara County. Together, they’re among the largest political donors in Western New York, and they mostly favor Republican candidates and committees.
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The post Past presidential election turnout in WNY appeared first on Investigative Post.
Voter turnout is considered key to the 2020 presidential election. This week, our Money In Politics takes a look at turnout in Western New York during the last six presidential elections. Our analysis also tracks which candidate won Erie, Niagara, Cattaraugus and Chautauqua counties. Ken and Geoff discuss the numbers and the turnout so far […]
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Our “Money In Politics” posts today and yesterday detail the largest donors to the presidential campaigns of Donald Trump and Joseph Biden. Ken Kruly and Jim Heaney discuss.
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Investigative Post this week launches a new feature, Money In Politics, based on research and analysis by Ken Kruly, who has had a distinguished career in government finance. Money In Politics will be accompanied by a companion podcast that will feature Ken and Geoff Kelly, who covers government and politics for Investigative Post. The first […]
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This edition of Investigative Postcast features a Dec. 4 panel discussion on the growing hostility towards the press, and the public’s right to know, from the White House to the State House to City Hall. Panelists included Jerry Zremski, Washington bureau chief of The Buffalo News, Jimmy Vielkind, Albany bureau chief of Politico New York, and Steve Brown, […]
The post Podcast: Reporters discuss government obstruction appeared first on Investigative Post.
This week’s podcast features the keynote address given by Sarah Cohen at Investigative Post’s annual benefit dinner Oct. 19. Cohen, who was part of a team at The Washington Post that won a Pulitzer Prize, and later an editor at The New York Times, focused her remarks on local news and investigative reporting. “The chaos […]
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For our latest Postcast, Dan Telvock interviewed Bill McKibben, an author and founder of 350.org, a grassroots climate change movement and news website. McKibben discusses a wide range of topics, including how climate change impacts the Great Lakes region and how the movement has evolved over the past decade.
The post Podcast: Environmentalist Bill McKibben appeared first on Investigative Post.
For our latest Postcast, Daniela Porat interviewed De’Jon Hall, a co-author of a two-year study by UB and Cornell Law Schools alleging that the Buffalo police department engages in unconstitutional and discriminatory policing. With Porat’s recent investigation into illegal searches by a group of officers in the department’s Strike Force and Housing Units and public […]
The post Podcast: Researcher De’Jon Hall on police misconduct appeared first on Investigative Post.
After a hiatus, Investigative Post has resumed its podcast program with a Jim Heaney interview with Sarah Cohen, a Pulitzer Prize winning journalist and editor with The New York Times. Cohen, a Buffalo native, will be the keynote speaker at Investigative Post’s gala dinner on Oct. 19 at the Hyatt Regency. She’ll discuss the […]
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In this episode of Investigative Postcast, reporter Daniela Porat talks about her recent story on the failure thus far of city’s elected officials to address the inadequate training of police in de-escalation tactics and other measures to avoid a Ferguson-type situation here in Buffalo. Porat, in her discussion with Investigative Post Editor Jim Heaney, also spoke […]
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In the latest episode of Investigative Postcast, environmental reporter Dan Telvock talks to Virginia Tech professor Marc Edwards about the risks posed by lead in drinking water, and why it’s a bigger problem than local governments want to acknowledge. Keeping drinking water safe, Edwards said, is primarily about following existing laws: “Trying to make sure that […]
The post Podcast: Telvock talks lead with Marc Edwards appeared first on Investigative Post.
In this episode of Investigative Postcast, Investigative Post’s environment reporter Dan Telvock discusses his award-winning coverage of Western New York’s lead poisoning problem, which has recently prompted the City of Buffalo to introduce new initiatives to combat the problem. Telvock explains why lead poisoning poses such a threat to young children and why New York’s […]
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In this episode of Investigative Postcast, Lee Coppola talks with Jim Heaney about his career as an investigative reporter and journalism educator. Coppola discussed the best story he did for The Buffalo News, which became the basis of a book and Hollywood film; his experience as a television reporter; and what prompted him to […]
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In this episode of Investigative Postcast, Margaret Sullivan talks with Jim Heaney about the current state of the press and her work as media columnist with The Washington Post. Sullivan, who previously served as editor in chief of The Buffalo News and public editor of New York Times, also discussed the state of investigative […]
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In this week’s episode of Investigative Postcast, Dan Telvock talks water quality with Erie County Legislator Pat Burke. Burke says the region has a history of bad environmental decisions. “Before we can even fix the obvious problems that exist now, we just have to stop doing dumb things,” said Burke, who introduced legislation that […]
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In this episode of Investigative Postcast, environmental reporter Dan Telvock talks to Assemblyman Sean Ryan about lead poisoning, which remains a serious problem in Buffalo. Ryan recently convened a roundtable in Rochester where experts and lawmakers discussed obstacles to eliminating childhood lead poisoning in the state. He said the group had a notable discussion about how […]
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In this episode of Investigative Postcast, our new podcast, listen to some highlights of Jim Heaney’s conversation with Susan Arbetter, the award-winning host and producer of The Capitol Pressroom. Heaney interviewed Arbetter in front of a live audience at the Burchfield Penney Art Center on Tuesday. In this excerpt: Arbetter’s thoughts on Gov. Andrew Cuomo, the diminished power […]
The post Podcast: Arbetter on Cuomo, state politics appeared first on Investigative Post.
Jim Heaney interviews Susan Arbetter, the award-winning host and producer of The Capitol Pressroom, on the inaugural episode of Investigative Postcast. Our plan is to post a new episode every Thursday featuring an Investigative Post journalist interviewing a newsmaker or discussing a recent story they’ve produced. Episodes will be available on our website, and, in the near future, on iTunes. […]
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Jim Heaney of Investigative Post and Steve Brown of WGRZ discuss the latest developments involving the Buffalo Billion on a TV edition of Outrages & Insights that broadcast Sunday on WGRZ.
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Charlotte Keith discusses how she reported her story on the lack of minority hiring at the SolarCity construction project in South Buffalo. Part of the challenge in reporting the story, she told Editor Jim Heaney, was the refusal of state officials to answer questions or provide public records in a timely fashion.
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