How Is Buffalo Going To Spend $60 Million in COVID Money?

The COVID-19 Pandemic has a huge impact on communities all over the country. People and businesses alike were effected in such an extreme way that it essentially shut down our country for the better part of 2 years.

To help combat those impacts, the Federal government initiated several programs to assist individuals, families, companies, and local governments try to recover. One of those programs, the American Rescue Plan, allocated $1.9 trillion in funding to be spent all over the country.

Buffalo, like many other communities, received a large infusion of cash due to how hard the area was hit by the pandemic. From the America Rescue Plan, Buffalo received a total of $331 million to help the cities recovery.

Of that money, Buffalo used it's portion to fund several programs and projects, and according to recent news reports from the Buffalo News and WGRZ, there is till around $60 million left to be spent.

How Should Buffalo Spend Its Leftover COVID Money?

After 2 years the City of Buffalo seems to finally has a plan to spend some of these last funds from the ARP, but details about these plans have not been released to the public. There have been some talk that the City would use these funds to cover general expenses, along with other projects like loans to local businesses, instead of helping to repair the communities that were most impacted from COVID-19.

That lack of transparency has caused several community groups to have called on Federal Officials to open an investigation on how the funds being used. It's also causing some people to question the overall process considering more than 50% of families in the City live in poverty.

How do you think Buffalo should spend these funds? Let us know what you think on Facebook.