It was from local media reports that Dr. Barbara Seals Nevergold learned that the City of Buffalo had withdrawn $100,000 in planned funding from the nonprofit she leads: The Uncrowned Queens Institute for Research and Education on Women, Inc.
The bad news came in December after the Buffalo Common Council approved the city’s amended American Rescue Plan (ARP) spending allocations, just days before the federal deadline to get the cash under contract by the end of 2024.
The final amendments to the plan redirected $17 million previously destined for community groups, or leftover from ARP-funded projects, to plug city budget gaps instead.
The cash designated to the Uncrowned Queens Institute was part of that hoard. With an average operating budget under $25,000 each year, Nevergold said the promised $100,000 would have been the biggest single investment the organization had ever received.
“Disappointment. Very much disappointment,” Nevergold said, describing her reaction to the loss.
Nevergold co-founded the institute in 2001 along with Dr Peggy Brooks-Bertram. Their mission? To capture biographies of local African American women - stories historically marginalized or erased.
“Our goal was to capture the histories of women from the time of the Pan Am to the present,” she said.
Nowadays, Nevergold wants to embrace digital trends to get the women’s stories out to the world. She planned to use the money to overhaul the institute's website, which currently has more than 1500 biographies. So when the money was lost, it hit hard.
A “confusing” process and communication woes
A complete lack of communication from the city was the key characteristic of the whole “confusing and nebulous” funding process from the start, said Nevergold, who maintains that she has never received acknowledgement from anyone within city hall over the status of the cash.
Not only did she learn that the money had been withdrawn through local media reports, but it was also how she heard it had been awarded.
“I found out from the newspaper, frankly,” she recalled with a chuckle.
It was Byron Brown himself who made a “direct ask” of Nevergold to apply for city funding, she said. Though it was not made in writing, Nevergold recalled that Brown’s directive came in early 2023 when he was Buffalo mayor.
Nevergold obliged and sent a grant proposal in 2023, outside the city’s ARP proposal submission window which closed in Dec. 2022, raising questions over the city’s application and ARP allocation processes.
Nevergold is clear she did not apply for the federal dollars specifically but said the proposal was submitted “with the understanding that the city would direct it to the funding source that was available.”
She only learned the institute had been designated ARP dollars more than a year later in July 2024 in the newspaper – an allocation enshrined in the city’s 5th amendment to its ARP spending plan.
An email sent to Acting Mayor Chris Scanlon’s office in October chasing the funds also went unanswered, Nevergold said.
In a Dec. 30 common council special session, Scanlon made a public promise that replacement funds would go to groups that missed out on previously allocated ARP cash, telling the councilmembers: “we will get those organizations their funding.”
But Nevergold is still in the dark from city hall.
"I haven’t received any correspondence yet,” she said.
But Scanlon’s office did respond to WBFO. In an email through a spokesperson, he said the city is working to identify alternate funding sources for arts and cultural organizations like Uncrowned Queens, although he did not give a timeline.
More impacted organizations
The Uncrowned Queens Institute is just one of eight organizations that lost out on promised ARP cash at the last minute.
The city also withdrew:
- $1 million in planned ARP cash for the Buffalo & Erie County Naval & Military Park slated to help fix two decommissioned vessels docked at the Buffalo waterfront (covered in-depth by WBFO, here);
- $250,000 previously allocated to the King Urban Life Center for roof repair
- $200,000 headed to the Frontline Arts Sustainability Fund - an alliance of five Buffalo arts groups: Ujima Theater Company, El Museo, Buffalo Arts Studio, Squeaky Wheel Film & Media Art Center and Locust St. Art.
Ujima Theater Company
Ujima Theater Company is based on Buffalo’s west side and works to preserve African American theater through performance. As the lead organization for the Frontline Arts Sustainability Fund, the theater company applied for the ARP cash on behalf of the coalition and was set to administer the funds among the groups according to Ujima’s Managing Director, Brian Brown.
But Brown said that on Dec. 16, a representative from the city’s Office of Diversity, Opportunity and Inclusion told him that Ujima’s planned role as a “pass through” for the federal dollars posed legal issues, citing federal guidelines.
With just two weeks before the deadline to obligate the funds, city representatives told Brown their qualms could not be resolved in time.
“The conversation went that we had run out of time. That the city and Ujima had run out of time in finishing the contract and there was nothing else that we could do,” Brown said.
A Memorandum of Understanding – a document officially agreeing the outline of the project – had been in place between Ujima and the city since March 2023 according to Brown, so he was baffled as to why city officials only seemed to realize there was a fundamental problem with the contract more than a year and a half later, and so close to the wire.
“They really ran the clock on this,” he said.
The loss of the ARP dollars was “heartbreaking” for Ujima’s Artistic Director, Curtis Lovell, whose mother Lorna C. Hill founded the company in 1978.
“It makes me think of my mother and all of her work, and sometimes it can feel for naught,” a dejected Lovell said. “Arts organizations seem to always be the thing that loses. And I think it's always easy to forget that while there are the natural needs of a citizen, the arts is a natural need.”
And as for the replacement funds Scanlon promised more than a month ago?
“Radio silence,” Brown said.
In a similar vein to the Uncrowned Queens Institute, Scanlon told WBFO that Ujima would be eligible to apply for future arts funding that the city is working to establish.
When asked why the city only seemed to realize there was a fundamental flaw with the proposed contract so late in the day, Scanlon responded:
“City officials were in communication with applicants and organizations that were earmarked awards throughout the ARP funding process, which began in 2022. As the federal funding obligation deadline approached, the city’s Law Department determined that the project scope of work did not satisfy federal requirements and the city informed Ujima. The funding was reallocated to revenue replacement, ensuring that the funds were not returned to the federal government and remained with the city.”
King Urban Life Center
On the city’s east side stands the King Urban Life Center, another victim of the ARP spending plan amendments.
The center provides free after school programming for low-income families, as well as other educational outreach initiatives. Located in the Broadway-Fillmore neighborhood, the nonprofit is housed in a century-old former church which, like most old buildings, needs attention and repair.
“We are in desperate need to restore a roof. We are in a historic church building, and our roof is in very poor shape,” said Digna Saad, Executive Director of the King Urban Life Center. “The roof is not just a discretionary expense, it's not cosmetic - it's essential to our operations.”
The city previously allocated $250,000 in ARP cash to fund 25% of the roof restoration project, but the money wound up being rolled into revenue replacement in December.
But all of this was news to Saad, who like Nevergold did not hear directly from the city and instead learned the ARP cash had been pulled via local media reports.
“Of course, we were panic stricken, and we started reaching out to the city,” Saad recalled.
Her efforts were fruitful. In a departure from the cases of Ujima Theater Company and the Uncrowned Queens Institute, a representative from the city’s Department of Public Works, Parks & Streets has since been in touch regarding replacement funds.
“But we had to contact them,” Saad emphasized.
According to the council’s upcoming Finance Committee agenda, $100,000 is earmarked for roof repairs from the Ellicott District capital improvement fund. Scanlon confirmed this development via a spokesperson and added the city is “working with Erie County to potentially identify additional funding.”
But “potential” cash won’t fix the leaky roof, and Saad is concerned that if repairs are not made soon, the center may have to close.
“If we were to cease to exist tomorrow, there will be at least 300 families impacted immediately,” Saad said.
“We support parents to have stable employment, so these families will have to find immediate care for the children because we run a free of charge after school program.”
