Buffalo News (New York), September 19, 2004, Sunday

Copyright 2004 The Buffalo News
Buffalo News (New York)

September 19, 2004 Sunday, FINAL EDITION

SECTION: BUSINESS, Pg.C1

HEADLINE: A BETTER LIFE FOR WORKERS, BUT AT WHAT COST TO THE CITY?/

BYLINE: Fred O. Williams; NEWS BUSINESS REPORTER

BODY:
Parking attendant Donna Riley got a $3 hourly raise last month, courtesy of a five-year-old city law.
Under Buffalo's Living Wage Law, which applies to city contractors, she earns $9.03 for tending the gate at downtown's Fernbach ramp, plus health benefits.
It's not just more money -- it's a different life, she said.
"I just requested full-time (work) when we got the living wage," Riley said. Working full-time could eventually mean giving up her disability benefits stemming from an accident in 1988. "I was scared, but I decided I wanted to try."
After years of wrangling over who would enforce it, the city's Living Wage Law is starting to boost the paychecks of low-income workers. Contractors with more than $50,000 in sales to the city are supposed to pay their workers at least $9.03 plus health benefits, or $10.15 without benefits.
Buffalo Civic Auto Ramps, which operates city-owned ramps downtown, was the first employer known to have complied. It boosted the wages of Riley and most of its other 53 workers in August, general manager Peter J. Scoma said. The cost: about $200,000 a year.
Raises from living wages should help the city's economy, as well as some of its working poor, by putting money back into neighborhoods, advocates say.
But business proponents wonder how the the nearly broke city and its wheezing economy can pay the bill.
"The bottom line is, someone is going to have to pay for this," said Bridget Corcoran, manager of local and government affairs at the Buffalo Niagara Partnership. "Either the consumer's going to pay for it or the city's going to have to."
The Buffalo Fiscal Stability Authority, informally known as the control board, is also withholding its applause.
"To the extent that it increases the city's expenses, BFSA would consider it ill-advised," said a statement from the board, relayed by spokeswoman Dorothy A. Johnson. The control board hasn't analyzed the impact of the wage law, she added.
Buffalo Common Council first passed the living wage in 1999, without an enforcement mechanism. A court battle over enforcement brought the creation of a Living Wage Commission to urge contractors to comply. Created a year ago, the commission recently persuaded some city parking contractors to raise their pay. Meanwhile, volunteers are pushing city departments to write the wage rule into contracts as they are renewed.
Buffalo is one of 58 localities nationwide that have adopted some form of living wage requirement, according to the anti-poverty group ACORN. The laws usually cover service jobs like janitors, security, food service and parking, with wage thresholds ranging from $6.25 to $12 an hour.
At least in the Riley household, the raise from the living wage seems to fulfill advocates' hopes for spin-off economic benefits.
Riley, 47, is thinking of buying a house in her Lovejoy neighborhood, something that was out of reach before. Her husband, Tim, also works for the parking contractor, doubling the impact of the pay raise.
"I thought we were going to live in this apartment 'til the day we died," she said.
Asked where she stood in the economic scheme of things before the pay raise, Riley doesn't hesitate: "Poor. I went bankrupt last May; I couldn't pay my bills, and I tried." Much of her check goes for co-pays on prescriptions.
Now, "I think we're going to end up with a house finally," she said.
Her co-worker Bruce Johnson also received a raise, not one that will alter his circumstances. An 18-year employee, his raise of $1.37 put his wage at $9.81 an hour. (Some senior workers got raises above the required threshold to maintain their pay premium over less experienced co-workers, Scoma said.)
"It's gonna help me out a little but not that much," the South Buffalo resident said. With seven children, from toddlers to teenagers, there are plenty of uses for the extra income, he said, especially at back-to-school time.
Cities should look at living wages as an investment in their tax base, not just an expense, said Lou Jean Fleron, chair of the Living Wage Commission and a faculty member at Cornell University's School of Industrial and Labor Relations.
"I think there's clearly a benefit to the economy," she said. The income means workers like Riley can become homeowners and spend more at local businesses, boosting tax rolls and stabilizing neighborhoods while reducing reliance on assistance programs.
"The cost is there -- you can pay with the one hand or with the other," Fleron said.
Maybe so, but just what that cost will be for city coffers is still unclear, five years after the law was passed. Neither the city comptroller or finance commissioner could estimate how many workers at city contractors are covered by the law, and how many might get raises. Decentralized city contracting, done individually by departments, makes the information difficult to collect, officials said.
Buffalo Civic Auto Ramps is thought to be the city's largest contractor in terms of low-wage employees. Its $200,000 in higher costs will reduce the stream of parking revenue to the city, Comptroller Andrew SanFilippo said. Downtown parking income of about $4-$5 million a year goes to service debt on the downtown ramps; any extra goes into a fund to meet payments in slower months.
Now other parking contractors are about to follow suit, after urging by the living wage commission. Allright New York Parking Inc., operator of three city-owned hospital ramps, expects to boost paychecks of about 20 covered workers in October, general manager Teresa Ruggiero said. Under the company's contract, the undetermined cost will be passed along to the city, she said.
Further costs to the city could be relatively light, Finance Commissioner James B. Milroy said. "Frankly," he said, "most of the unskilled work within the city we do with our own employees." e-mail: fwilliams@buffnews.com