Back in April, Mayor Byron W. Brown and County Executive Chris Collins proudly announced they had sealed a new parks-maintenance agreement for the second half of 2009.

Under the agreement, the city would give Erie County $3.5 million — in three installments starting July 15 — and county crews would continue to maintain Buffalo’s parks and playgrounds until the end of the year.

In addition, by Aug. 15 Buffalo and Erie County would draft a new deal that would cover 2010 and beyond.

Under the pact, the mayor would not have to ramp up his city Parks Department in the midst of his re-election campaign. However, July 15 has passed without any payment from Buffalo to Erie County.

In fact, about $1.2 million remains past due when unpaid escalation payments from the old deal are taken into consideration.

And now Aug. 15 has come and gone without a new parks agreement for 2010.

The city and county negotiators are still talking.

“We continue to meet regularly with the city, and negotiations are ongoing,” said Grant Loomis, a spokesman for Collins. “Both sides are very engaged.”

Brown’s spokesman said something similar.

“The most important thing to do is to get an agreement in place,” Peter Cutler said. “If it comes some time after the date they had jointly set, it will. It doesn’t mean an agreement won’t come together.”

But what about the past-due money? Apparently, the wheels of government moved very slowly on that matter.

“We don’t have a contract up here yet,” Tony Farina of the Buffalo comptroller’s office, which sends out payments on behalf of City Hall, said last week.

Farina said that since the office had not received a signed copy of the contract from the mayor’s aides — even though Brown and Collins signed the deal months ago — the comptroller’s office could not issue a check. By Friday, however, Farina had obtained a copy and said the July 15 payment should go out this week.

“Obviously we want to honor any agreement we have made,” Farina said.

The county comptroller is glad to hear it. His office sent the city comptrol-