Erie County Control Board: The Empire Strikes Back
Isn’t it ironic that we’d save about a million bucks per year in county taxpayer dollars if we got rid of the ECFSA? How fiscally “adult”.
On Friday, the control board’s finance committee voted to recommend going back to a “hard” control period, because it says the administration’s four-year plan is defective and because it says it can do county short-term borrowing more cheaply than the county can. They gave the administration until tomorrow to fix it.
The latter claim is dubious, at best, and the former is nothing more than substituting one guess (the four-year plan) with another (the control board’s interpretation of it).
The full control board meets on Thursday in a an auditorium that can fit 300 people, but 3 will attend, and all of them will be county staffers and press.
I guess they have to justify their existence and expense every once in a while. Sort of like the patronage-laden, expensive board of the Erie County Water Authority.
The arrogance and stupidity of the control board is on full display with this decision. Under the standards that the ECFSA is using every county in NYS should be under a hard control board. Erie County’s finances are in much better condition then almost every other large county in the state. We are running multi million dollar surpluses while other countyies run deficits. We are adding to our fund balance while others deplete theirs. We are maintaining a stable tax rate while others are facing double digit increases. The hypocisy of Albany maintaining a control board in Erie County is overwhelming. Anyone who believes in home rule, liberty, freedom and democracy should be on the phone with their state representatives and demanding that Albany get rid of the ECFSA. This is an issue that the County Comptroller, Executive and Legislature all agree on, all people who the voters of this county put into office to manage the finances of the this county, that must mean something. Don’t let Albany continue to ignore the will of the people. STOP the ECFSA!
Wow, Ray was going to town there. The only thing he didn’t include was believing in mom and apple pie.
He is right thoough. This has nothing to do with governing and everything to do with the authority trying to stay in power. They could have gone back to control status anytime since the 4 year plan was released in October and never did. They only are doing so now to stop my office from issuing debt on behalf of the county because when we issue debt it will show the county’s good credit on Wall Street and would be another nail in their coffin. The executive director of the board makes more money than any other elected official and most of the time he is doing nothing. It is no wonder he wants the board to continue.
Just what we need in Erie County, another group of appointed politicians doing everything they can to maintain their power while leaching off the taxpayers. The ECFSA has been wrong on every judgment call to date. Given the absence of any real fiscal emergency, this Authority was put together by the enemies of Giambra. (Isn’t he gone?) Their first “hard” declaration was not based on facts and Giambra never seriously challenged the legal basis for their determination. It is time to dump the whole gang and save us all a ton of money. BTW, I have always wanted a true cost accounting to the burden which the Authority places on the county via information requests and additional red tape. When you take into account county personnel time, I’ll bet the actual cost to the citizens is many times the ECFSA’s direct expenditures.
Wow! Mark P agrees with Ray W. Maybe bipartisanship is actually possible.
Contrary to popular belief, there are things we agree upon in government. Not everything, but on a day-to-day basis my office is working with the administration and the legislature on many policy matters. And that is how you govern: by compromise and working things out, not be mandate.
The ECFSA has cost the county millions since created. Millions in employee/consultant fees (including $2,000,000 to PFM, its consultant, in the first year alone) and it cost taxpayers $7,000,000 – $10,000,000 when they rejected a great tax lien deal and we rebid it and came back with worse proposals (see here for the BN story on that: http://www.poloncarz.com/bn072607.htm).
In the end, the ECFSA has cost us more than it has been worth, and we are still paying.
Disclaimer – I don’t understand how political appointments or authorities work, and am not well versed on what we can or can’t directly vote for in this state. That said, since the ECFSA was not voted into existence by the citizens, will we (taxpayers in Erie County) ever get a formal say in the future of said organization? Like, for instance, could Erie County taxpayers vote in November to decide either to A. keep it, B. dissolve it, or C. maintain the current wishy washy inbetween status we have now? If so, I would vote for the money currently spent on the ECFSA to be allocated in a way that actually helps our monetary problems, not adds to them.
Per 3953 of the Public Authorities Law, the Governor appoints the Chair, Vice Chair and two other board members. The Gov also picks the three other board members, but they are “appointed on the written recommendation of the temporary president of the state senate, the speaker of the state assembly and the state comptroller…” It appears that we will never get direct input into the fate of the Authority. I wonder if an advisory referendum is possible?
Thanks, Peter. It bothers me that we don’t get direct input with regard to Authorities. Just not right.