After lengthy debate, Buffalo has a capital budget for the next year. Some were looking for more than the $20 million spending plan.
The city will actually spend a lot more than that since much of it's the local share of projects using state or federal money and there are other sources of cash. The capital budget covers major projects, like the million dollars going into parks.
"The comptroller, who is fiscally conservative and very responsible, didn't want to spend the kind of money that the administration wanted to, but they were able to meet somewhere in the middle," explained Majority Leader David Rivera.
"Certainly, we don't want to go over our debt diet and we want to keep some control over the money that we bond for. We want to make certain the projects are ready to go."
For Rivera's Niagara District, there are a lot of neighborhood projects, like the continuing extension of new lighting on Richmond and curb and sidewalk improvements in areas where immigrants have moved and improved housing. City-wide, there is a lot of cash going into infrastructure repairs and into continuing repairs on cultural buildings like the Science Museum and the East Delavan Library.
