Universal child care: State expands program, WNY may wait<\/a><\/strong><\/p>\nThe largest share of the funding \u2014 $40 million \u2014 would be allocated to the Buffalo, with additional money distributed to several neighboring municipalities to help address rising costs and advance local projects.<\/p>\n
In addition to Buffalo\u2019s funding, several other Western New York cities could also receive state support: $6.2 million is going to the Niagara Falls, $2.2 million to the Lackawanna, $1.5 million to the North Tonawanda, and $1.6 million to the Jamestown.<\/p>\n
City officials in Lackawanna say the funding will help offset steep price increases affecting municipal operations. According to the city\u2019s Director of Public Information, Chuck Clark, the cost of basic materials and supplies has climbed sharply.<\/p>\n
\u201cLackawanna in particular is seeing an across-the-board price increase in supplies, materials and parts ranging from 25 percent to 50 percent, which is very significant. For the benefit of taxpayers, we\u2019re going to apply that money so that city services are maintained and not burdened,\u201d Clark said.<\/p>\n
Officials say the goal is to ensure that rising costs do not force cuts to city services or additional pressure on taxpayers.<\/p>\n
Another $1.5 million will go to the North Tonawanda, where city leaders say the funding will help move forward long-planned infrastructure projects.<\/p>\n
Mayor Austin Tylec said the money will support a range of initiatives already on the city\u2019s development agenda.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe\u2019re talking tens of millions of dollars in infrastructure projects, streetscape enhancements, new public amenities, bike paths. So it\u2019s really going to help us, especially with our bond capacity too,\u201d Tylec said. \u201cIt\u2019s going to help us cover some of our interest costs that we\u2019re seeing while we hold onto the money and complete projects\u2014many of which will be completed this year.\u201d<\/p>\n
Local leaders say the funding arrives at a critical time as municipalities across the region face inflation-driven increases in construction materials, equipment, and maintenance costs.<\/p>\n
For Western New York cities, the additional state investment is expected to help maintain services, support infrastructure upgrades, and move forward with long-planned community improvements while limiting the financial impact on local taxpayers.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Gov. Kathy Hochul announced $150 million in financial assistance for municipalities outside New York City. BUFFALO, N.Y. \u2014…\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":653815,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":"","_share_on_mastodon":"0"},"categories":[5122],"tags":[5229,405,403,5226,5225,5228,5227,67,586,132,5230,68,2969],"class_list":["post-653814","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-new-york","tag-america","tag-new-york","tag-new-york-city","tag-newyork","tag-newyorkcity","tag-ny","tag-nyc","tag-united-states","tag-united-states-of-america","tag-unitedstates","tag-unitedstatesofamerica","tag-us","tag-usa"],"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@us\/116224599370732153","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/653814","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=653814"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/653814\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/653815"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=653814"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=653814"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=653814"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}