Revenue Rank: 34
Form of Government; Mayor-Council
Mayor: Anthony M. Masiello (took office 1994)
Elected Council President: James W. Pitts
Common Council: 12 members (9 elected by district, 3 at large)
FINANCIAL MANAGEMENT: C
When the current administration took office in 1994, Buffalo had a looming deficit about twice the size of the one that actually had been reported. The first priority was getting the city out of the financial gutter.
This hasn’t been easy. Buffalo’s credit ratings have gone up but are still low (BBB from Standard & Poor’s and Baa1 from Moody’s Investors Service). The city admits it “does not budget for fluctuations in the economy.” Cost accounting is virtually nonexistent. Buffalo’s last financial report had a qualified opinion as a result of problems in the way schools accounted for purchase of new equipment.
There is hope for the future, however. A charter revision approved by voters in November formalizes improvements that have already been put in place — such as five-year financial forecasts, revenue and expenditure tracking as each year unfolds, and restructured collection and procurement.
The city has kept its revenue and expenditure estimates accurate, and it has cut down on overtime. Relations with surrounding Erie County, terrible in the past, are likely to improve, both because the charter encourages this and because the city comptroller was recently elected county executive.
The biggest long-term problems may be ones imposed by the state of New York. State labor laws constrain Buffalo’s ability to control salaries and pensions for uniformed workers.
HUMAN RESOURCES: D
Prior to the 1999 referendum, which called for a centralized human resources function starting next July, Buffalo didn’t even have an HR department. Personnel functions were divided among three separate entities. The referendum, along with the arrival of a sophisticated new HR computer system, offers genuine hope of improvement for the first time in years.
Almost anything would be an improvement. Under the old system, training has been minimal. There has been no mechanism for evaluating employee performance. Even when excellent workers have been identified, there has been virtually no way to reward them. And although Buffalo does try to predict future retirements, one staffer describes this as a “plug-the-holes-in-a-sinking ship” system.
Here, too, much of the rigidity is a gift from New York State, which imposes tight control on its municipalities. Managers must choose from a very limited list of applicants, and hiring can be extremely slow when lists aren’t available. The city is saddled with archaic disciplinary laws that require extensive hearings before any action is taken.
There is a generally acrimonious relationship with unions in Buffalo, and a huge number of grievances, although labor-management relations are improving.
INFORMATION TECHNOLOGY: C
An early draft of Buffalo’s new charter provided that, under the revised administrative structure, the IT director would report to the mayor. But politics intervened, so as of July, he will report to a triumvirate made up of the mayor, the controller and the council president. It doesn’t sound like an ideal way to make decisions.
Some important decisions and changes need to be made. Training for IT specialists has been a real disaster here; this is the first year in six that any training money at all has been made available in the budget. The only preparation managers have received has been on their own time.
With this context, it’s a little surprising to discover that much of Buffalo’s technology is pretty good. Most of it fits into a neatly integrated architecture. A new data warehouse allows users to extract information easily about financial management and human resources.
CAPITAL MANAGEMENT: C-
Although maintenance and project tracking could both use improvement here, the big problem has been capital planning. While a long-term plan exists in theory, the part extending beyond one year is merely a generic projection of capital spending for each department. It’s conceived without sufficient information about available resources. Capital projects tend to pop up entirely outside the planning process. The city council adds projects that never have a chance of fruition.
The new charter will create a comprehensive five-year approach to planning, with the amounts available for capital spending firmly established. The planning process will begin much earlier in the year, before the operating budget siphons off attention and money. The charter also requires a tighter upfront estimate from the comptroller of how much new debt can prudently be added.
Some improvements have already taken place. The mayor has added to a tradition that makes citizen involvement a high priority. Informal cooperation among agencies has improved, and input is sought from the suburbs, county and state.
MANAGING FOR RESULTS: D+
Buffalo has never had much commitment to strategic planning. There have been efforts within the mayor’s office, and in community and economic development, but there’s been minimal success conveying the plans to city employees. “There’s been a lack of communication,” admits budget director James Milroy.
Overall goals do appear in the budget, reflecting the personal wishes of the mayor. The city produces simple workload indicators — the number of service calls answered, for example — but, as Milroy says, “there are no real outcome measures or customer satisfaction measures.”
Generally, momentum for improvement is powerful here. Notably, the charter revision moves the Office of Strategic Planning to the mayor’s office and encourages the setting of performance targets, with follow-up reporting to make sure they’re achieved. This change has had strong support from both the city council and mayor.
AVERAGE GRADE: C-
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