The Buffalo Municipal Housing Authority paid $211,216 for outside legal services that should have been performed by the authority’s in-house lawyer, according to a federal audit that was undertaken a year ago in response to an anonymous hotline complaint.

The audit renewed tenant claims that the authority wastes money on outside law firms, money that could be better spent providing services to residents.

However, in response to that same anonymous complaint, the audit did not find the Buffalo Police Department in breach of a $650,000 annual contract with the BMHA, though the audit did fault how the authority allocated police protection costs across its 19 public housing developments. The audit by the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development’s Office of Inspector General concluded that it was not done in an equitable manner.

The police contract also has been a contentious issue as tenant leaders complain about crime in and around BMHA properties and call for the authority to hire its own private police force, as it did until contracting with the city in 2010 to cut costs.

Tenant complaints about the contract and police protection will be on the agenda at Tuesday’s meeting of the Common Council Police Oversight Committee. But the HUD auditors did not find fault overall with the agreement between the city and the BMHA...