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This is rich, even for profligate New York.
The NFL team owner who got Gov. Kathy Hochul to put up $850 million in state and county taxpayer money to build a new Buffalo Bills stadium is $1 billion richer.
Bills owner Terry Pegula moved up 60 places on the latest Forbes list of the 400 richest Americans.
Pegula is now ranked at No. 128 with an estimated net worth of $6.7 billion — an increase of 17.5% over last year’s list, when he was worth $5.7 billion, the Buffalo News reported.
His increased wealth over the past year is more than the $600 million New York state and $250 million in Erie County subsidies that were stuffed into the state budget this spring — at Hochul’s behest.
Pegula also owns the Buffalo Sabres hockey team. He previously made his fortune in oil and gas before buying sports franchises.
Hochul’s push for the massive hometown subsidy for a billionaire sports owner drew a firestorm of opposition from critics and voters who cried it was another case of corporate welfare for a billionaire owner of a popular sports franchise who didn’t need it.
But it made its way into the budget deal anyway.
The deal looks even worse now, given Pegula’s $1 billion windfall, one budget watchdog said.
“The rich get richer. This is a handout to a super rich guy. This is corporate welfare, a taxpayer subsidy for a billionaire owner of a sports franchise,” fumed John Kaehhy, executive director of the group Reinvent Albany.
“The taxpayer money for the Buffalo Bills stadium is almost the same amount as the taxpayer subsidy. The more taxpayer money provided for the new stadium, the richer Pegula gets. This is icing on top of the icing of the cake.”
Hochul’s Republican gubernatorial opponent, Long Island Rep. Lee Zeldin, has also slammed the stadium deal as a taxpayer giveaway to a billionaire.
The controversial deal also raised eyebrows because her husband, Bill Hochul, is senior vice president and legal counsel of the food concessionaire at the Bills stadium that could benefit from the new stadium, Delaware North.
Hochul’s office on Monday again defended the Pegula-Bills stadium deal as a plus for western New York and the entire state. The governor is a Buffalo native.
“The Bills franchise is a proven economic driver, and the economic and tax impacts generated from the team will support more than 100 percent of the public share of the new stadium,” a Hochul spokesman claimed.
“This agreement secures the Bills’ long term future for decades to come while putting to work thousands of union workers in what will be the largest construction project in Western New York history.”
The combined state-local subsidy of the entire cost to build the new football stadium is 61%, of which 43 percent comes from the state, Hochul’s office said.
The Post previously reported that Pegula and his wife, Kim, don’t even reside in New York. They vote from an address in sun-splashed Boca Raton, Fla.
Hochul, seeking to quell the backlash, announced in April that she reached a resolution with the Seneca Nation and received $564 million in funds that was owed to the state and local governments as part of a casino compact. She claimed much of that money will be used to finance New York’s share of the stadium deal.
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