Buffalo Bills begin funding projects under community benefits agreement: Investigative Post

The team’s decision to begin funding projects under a community benefits agreement before the stadium is completed takes the oversight committee by surprise.

Buffalo Bills stadium under construction in Orchard Park. Photo by Garrett Looker.

The good news: The Buffalo Bills have already begun spending millions of dollars on community groups and projects, under the community benefits agreement tied to the team’s new stadium.

But that’s not all: The team extended the CBA, agreeing to make the annual allocations for three more years. That means the Bills will spend an additional $9 million on the CBA, for a total of $99 million over 33 years. It also means the money is flowing now, instead of starting in 2026 when the new Highmark Stadium, expected to cost $1.7 billion, opens to the public.

However, there is also bad news: The nine-member committee charged with overseeing the CBA and holding the Bills accountable for spending the annual $3 million allocation is behind schedule, given that the team started without them. In fact, the Community Benefits Oversight Committee did not know until recently that the Bills would extend the agreement and begin spending their annual allocation earlier than planned. The committee is now playing catch-up.

“I’m partly responsible for this confusion because it was absolutely intended to start with the new building,” said Erie County Prosecutor Jeremy Toth. “Because of the effective date of the collective bargaining agreement, we’ve added three years to the process.”

This meant that the committee had no say in how the team spent $3 million this year.

“We didn’t have a say this time,” said the Rev. Mark Blue, chairman of the committee and president of the Buffalo NAACP. “But we’re going to work out a formula to divide up the expenses going forward.”

Penny Samaia, the Bills player Vice President of New Stadium Relationssaid at a meeting Monday that the first $3 million was spent for economic reasons development, youth and education, and community and civic programs. A full accounting of the spending won’t be available until the team submits its annual report to the state, Erie County and the committee on July 29, he said. The oversight committee will discuss how the money was spent at its August meeting.

Blue said the committee would benefit from the next $3 million allocation.

“I’m not saying it was unfair, but we didn’t know it,” he said. “Now that we know it, we’re going to be more proactive.”

Additionally, the committee is still determining how it will operate. It doesn’t have bylaws yet, it’s still determining which Erie County staff will help it with its work and it didn’t determine until Monday when its next meetings will be.

The committee has agreed to meet on the second Monday of each month. The location of the meetings may vary. To date, meetings have been held at 9 a.m. or 11 a.m. Meeting documents are posted on the buffalo bills website.

Several board members said Monday they were confident the Bills would spend the first $3 million wisely and would begin working together to make specific recommendations on where future allocations should go. Under the agreement, the Bills own and control all CBA funds but spend them based on the oversight committee’s recommendations.

The deal was struck, County Executive Mark Poloncarz said, to allow the Bills to use CBA spending as a tax deduction. At the time the deal was signed, experts criticized the fact that the oversight committee had no staff or budget of its own and that the agreement did not stipulate specific projects on which the money would be spent.

Collective bargaining agreements in other cities list specific projects and programs that a professional sports team would fund in exchange for public financial support, experts noted. The NBA’s Los Angeles Clippers, for example, agreed to fund affordable housing, college scholarships and a library, while a Nashville collective bargaining agreement stipulated that affordable housing and child care be built on the site of a Major League Soccer stadium. In Pittsburgh, the NHL’s Penguins invested $1 million in a grocery store in a historically black neighborhood.

The Community Benefits Oversight Committee meets Monday at the downtown public library. Photo by J. Dale Shoemaker.

Franchelle Parker, member of the oversight committee and executive director of Buffalo opensaid she would like to see the money go to helping the city’s youth, whether through school supplies, job training programs or direct scholarships.

“There were some difficulties at the beginning,” she said. “But I hope we will get to a point where the money will help people who are suffering.”

Blue and other committee members said they want to see more community involvement at their meetings so they can learn how residents want the Bills to spend the money. Parker suggested handing out flyers advertising the youth meetings, while a pastor who attended the meeting suggested using radio programs to get the word out. Monday’s meeting was advertised in newspapers, at the county building, on two ECC campuses and on the Buffalo Bills website.

“This has to evolve publicly so the community can see it evolve and, if necessary, criticize, comment, applaud,” Toth said. “Everyone can see it evolve, and we’ll all be surprised at times, and hopefully proud when it’s all over.”

At Monday’s meeting, the Bills also said the team is largely on track to meet the collective bargaining agreement’s provisions for employing women and people of color, as well as women-owned and minority-owned businesses, on the stadium project. As for workers, Semaia said more than 20% of the hours were worked by minority employees, exceeding the 15% goal, and apprentices performed 13.6% of the work, exceeding the 10% goal. Women performed 4.8% of the work, just under the 5% goal, he said.

In terms of activity, Semaia said minority-owned businesses won 17.4% of the first two rounds of contracts, exceeding the 15% goal, while women-owned businesses won 8.4% of contracts, falling short of the 15% goal. Only 3.1% of contracts went to businesses owned by service-disabled veterans, falling short of the 6% goal.

published 2 minutes ago – July 9, 2024