An obscure state agency has postponed approval of a nearly half-billion-dollar payment to a centerpiece of Gov. Andrew Cuomo’s upstate economic development plan.

While administration officials and the governor said Tuesday that the Public Authorities Control Board’s week-long delay was merely a scheduling issue, critics and even some lawmakers began rumbling that the monies should be held back given the widening federal investigation into possible conflicts of interest and fraud in the development initiative.

At issue is a $458 million chunk of the $750 million in state funding that will support SolarCity, a 1.2-million-square-foot solar panel factory in Buffalo that will be largely funded by taxpayers.

The PACB, which has representatives of the Cuomo administration as well as both legislative leaders, was originally set to approve the money on Wednesday. The decision has been pushed back to May 25.

The SolarCity project, which is part of Cuomo’s “Buffalo Billion” development portfolio, is under investigation by the office of Preet Bharara, U.S. Attorney for the Southern District.

The investigation is reported to be focusing on Cuomo’s former aide, Joe Percoco, and lobbyist Todd Howe, but it has extended across the state with examinations of projects and proposals in Albany, Syracuse and elsewhere.

Additionally, Attorney General Eric Schneiderman is investigating a bid to build a dormitory adjacent to SUNY Polytechnic’s Albany campus. The initial bid has been scrapped since the inquiry started, and the project was put out to bid a second time.

Amid that scrutiny have come calls for a freeze on the massive Buffalo project, pending the investigation.

“I think the Public Authorities Control Board would be completely within reason to hit ‘pause’ and demand further disclosure and oversight,” said Ken Girardin, communications and marketing manager at the Empire Center, a fiscally conservative think tank.

“I would raise the question of whether there should be a freeze,” added John Kaehny, executive director of Reinvent Albany, a good government group that focuses on transparency and other issues.

In addition to the criminal probe and concerns about bid-rigging, Kaehny pointed to news, first reported in Buffalo’s Investigative Post, that SolarCity had lowered its estimate of factory jobs from 1,460 to 500 within the first two years of the operation.

SolarCity has said it would be adding other types of support jobs. And Cuomo on Tuesday said there would be a “phase-in” to the higher number of positions. But Kaehny noted that the downsized factory numbers were approved months ago with no public notice. “The fact that they cut these jobs in secret, that’s appalling,” he said.

Cuomo, following an event in Manhattan on Tuesday, said the payments will also have to be approved by the independent investigator he hired after the federal probe was launched. The governor last month hired a former federal prosecutor, Bart Schwartz, to examine the deals surrounding the Buffalo Billion and other economic development initiatives.

“Any payments that are made, Mr. Schwartz will also independently approve,” Cuomo said. “It’s redundant … but I’d rather have it that way.”

Cuomo emphasized that he was waiting to hear all the facts.

“I’m realistic enough to say in an operation this size with this much money and this many players, it’s unrealistic to say nothing bad is ever going to happen,” he said of state economic development in general. “People are venal. Some people have bad intentions. Some people, frankly, are stupid. … The real question is what do you do once you find a bad actor? How do you respond? Do you punish it? And did you put the systems in place to make sure it didn’t happen again?”

Legislative leaders so far have been noncommittal on the idea of a freeze. And it would be a hard sell given the western New York delegation’s desire for jobs in the region.

But others had their doubts.

Assembly Republican Minority Leader Brian Kolb, for example, Tweeted out this message: “Albany better think long and hard before sending a HALF-BILLION in taxpayer dollars to a project under federal investigation.”

© 2016 Times Union