BUFFALO, N.Y. — Remember the Grand Island Welcome Center along the I-190? The one that cost state taxpayers $25 million?
It looks like poor planning for similar centers across the state cost New Yorkers millions of dollars in unnecessary expenses.
An audit by the State Comptroller's office does not include the Grand Island Welcome Center in Western New York, because it opened after the audit fieldwork was done.
But the comptroller looked at several others and found almost $9 million in cost overruns, with poor planning costing the state an extra $4 million.
The state didn't properly plan around a sewer system and started work on a rest area before realizing the site wasn't big enough and had to move it to another location.
The audit recommended changes to make sure that this doesn't happen again.
You can read the full audit here.