Buffalo Collects Under 9 Percent of Housing Court Fines Since 2020, Data Show

The City of Buffalo has failed to collect roughly $6.5 million in Housing Court fines issued over the past six years, money that could help ease its budget problems, according to data from the New York State Office of Court Administration obtained by Investigative Post.

Since January 2020, Housing Court judges have imposed $7,024,200 in fines. The city has collected $481,500 of that total, or 8.5 percent. City records also show that another $6.8 million in fines went uncollected between 2017 and 2019, bringing the amount left unpaid over eight years to more than $13 million.

The court's current judge, Phillip Dabney Jr., took over in December after Patrick Carney retired following 30 years on the City Court bench, the last 14 of them in Housing Court. Carney was often criticized as too lenient, but the data show Dabney is issuing far fewer fines. After the pandemic, Carney averaged about 1,500 fines a year. Dabney has issued less than a quarter of that number in his first nine months. Even in 2020 and 2021, when court activity was curtailed, Carney issued 487 and 492 fines. Of the 310 fines Dabney has handed down in 2025, just one has been paid. Dabney, Eighth Judicial Administrative Judge Amy Martoche and Chief City Court Judge JaHarr Pridgen did not respond to requests for comment.

Housing Court judges can fine owners who do not fix violations cited by city inspectors, which range from overgrown grass and trash to lead contamination, abandonment and structural hazards. The typical fine is $500 per uncorrected violation, with a maximum of $1,500. City lawyers recommend amounts, but the judge decides. Last month, Dabney issued a $1.3 million fine to the owner of Elmwood Heights LLC, reflecting maximum daily fines for each day violations went unresolved. That penalty has not yet been entered into the court system because of technical limitations, so it is not included in the totals.

The problem is not new. Investigative Post previously reported $22 million in unpaid penalties from 2006 to 2012, with most of about 1,470 property owners facing no consequences. In 2012, Carney called his fines "really, totally uncollectable," and he and City Treasurer Michael Seaman blamed owners who hide behind LLCs or live downstate, out of state or abroad. Seaman did not respond to requests for comment this time.

Collected fines go to the city's general fund. Last year the city covered a $40 million deficit with the last of its cash reserves and federal pandemic aid, and it will likely face another this fiscal year. Acting Mayor Chris Scanlon told The Buffalo News in February: "We don't have a spending problem. We have a revenue problem."

Collection falls to the Division of Treasury and Collections, which says Housing Court fines are referred to an outside contractor. The city's prior firm, Mercantile Adjustment Bureau, ceased operations last month. The Council in March approved a contract with RTR Financial Services, which did not respond to requests for comment.

Lawmakers also point to a law the Council adopted in May 2019, proposed in 2014 by Scanlon and then-Council Member Rich Fontana, that lets unpaid fines be added to tax bills and become liens against property. It has rarely, if ever, been used. The Brown administration's 2024-25 budget listed the step as a goal, targeting 600 properties, and indicated it was not accomplished in the prior two years. Scanlon sought an update in April 2024, but Fillmore District Council Member Mitch Nowakowski says none has come. Corporation Counsel Cavette Chambers, whose resignation Scanlon announced last week, did not respond to requests for comment.

"I'm shocked, but not surprised," said University District Council Member Rasheed Wyatt. Former Housing Court liaison Fred Brace called the rate "totally unacceptable." Lovejoy District Council Member Bryan Bollman said the city must take the issue "a lot more seriously," and Nowakowski said the next corporation counsel should "completely rethink the law department."