Some use grant funds to buy frills
By Matthew Spina
NEWS STAFF REPORTER
The program providing $200 state grants to help needy families buy school supplies contains a few loopholes.
A family can collect $200 even for a 16-year-old who has dropped out of school.
Further, nothing — except the state’s wish that people do the right thing — blocks recipients from spending their grants on video games or any other frill unrelated to school.
“There is truly no way to ensure the families spend the money as it was intended,” said Carol Dankert, Erie County’s acting social services
commissioner, who added, “We certainly want to believe families are going to do the right thing for their kids.”
The $200 grants will go to more than 800,000 children statewide from the ages of 3 through 17 whose families already qualify for food stamps or other public assistance. There are about 38,000 eligible children in Erie County, meaning the grants for Erie County’s kids alone create a $7.7 million shopping spree.
In Niagara County, about 7,300 children are eligible, meaning the program will deposit $1.48 million there, according to state figures.
A family with three eligible children will collect $600.
For many, it’s a godsend.
“To me, it was a blessing,” said Christine Castro of Cheektowaga, the single mother of a 12-year-old daughter who applied for food stamps after losing her retail sales job about a year ago.
“It’s tough for everybody out here,” she said. “I have credentials. But right now is not the time for people to find the jobs that they want. I was told never to look a gift horse in the mouth.”
Castro said she spent some of the $200 Tuesday at a Walmart on pencils, paper, notebooks and a dry erase board. At the same time, she saw families using their money for video games and even a television set. “The clerk who cashed me out said people were doing that all day long,” she said.
Gov. David A. Paterson called the $175 million program the first of its kind in New York. Philanthropist George Soros and the Open Society Institute donated $35 million, which allowed New York to draw $140 million in federal economic stimulus money.
http://www.buffalonews.com/cityregion/story/762327.html#comment
Fastest Dying Cities' Meet for a Lively Talk
DAYTON, Ohio -- Here's an idea for saving Rust Belt cities: Tell bloggers and radio stations to stop calling your town a basket case.
That was one suggestion from representatives of eight of the 10 cities labeled last year as America's fastest dying. They met at the Dayton Convention Center last weekend to swap ideas about how to halt the long skid that's turned cities like Detroit, Cleveland and Buffalo, N.Y., into shorthand for dystopia.
Ground broken for Yahoo! data center
Lockport IDA Director David Kinyon, left, talks with David Dibble, Yahoo! executive vice president for service engineering&operations.Charles Lewis/Buffalo News
By Thomas J. Prohaska
NEWS NIAGARA REPORTER
TOWN OF LOCKPORT (NY) - The skies were overcast but the mood couldn't have been sunnier Wednesday morning as Yahoo! broke ground for its $150 million East Coast data center.
"This facility is going to be the single most efficient, environmentally friendly data center in the planet," vowed David Dibble, Yahoo! executive vice president of services for engineering and operations.
The Town of Lockport Industrial Development Agency sold Yahoo! a vacant 30-acre parcel in their industrial park off Junction Road for $450,000. The IDA also provided an 20-year property tax break which included a 100 percent tax exemption for the first 10 years.
http://www.buffalonews.com/145/story/762383.html
Kliphnote: Look here ,what do we see?
New business coming to NY state.
And why was that? A tax break! Dah. Take the hint?
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