CITY GOVERNMENT
Brown vows action on poverty funds
Following a scathing report about how the city continues to mismanage anti-poverty funds, Mayor Byron W. Brown vowed a “full and immediate accounting” of city officials responsible for overseeing the funds.
“If it is confirmed that any of these findings in the [U. S. Department of Housing and Urban Development] report are the direct result of staff mismanagement, I will take appropriate disciplinary action, including the possibility of termination of employment,” Brown said in a statement released Saturday.
The HUD audit blasted the city for an array of problems including: too much spending on bureaucrats, questionable financing for upscale housing developments and sloppy fiscal management.
The report found that less than half of every dollar spent directly benefits low or moderate income residents.
The city gets $22 million a year in Community Development Block Grant funds.
The mayor’s office initially declined to comment on the report, citing that it was a draft report.
But Brown changed his tune and sent out a one-page statement to reporters on Saturday.
Brown acknowledged that, over the last three decades, “lack of uniform reporting and confusion over eligible usages” have been repeatedly cited as problems with how Buffalo administers its HUD grant money.
He said that the city’s Office of Strategic Planning is preparing a response to the finding.
Brown called the HUD audit “a valuable tool in judging where we are and what still needs to be done.”
He said City Hall “will take all of the necessary corrective action on this important issue.”
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