Erie County control board may go ‘soft’
Approval of four-year financial plan is expected at an oversight meeting today
Erie County’s control board appears ready to end more than two years of “adult supervision.”
The state oversight board is expected to approve a four-year financial plan for the county at a meeting later today and may go so far as to revert to a “soft” board with greatly reduced powers.
If the board reverts to advisory status, it would end Erie County’s dubious distinction as the only county in the state where two hard control boards operate. The other board oversees Buffalo’s finances.
“We want to see if this thing can fly,” said Kenneth C. Kruly, a control board member and a former county budget director. “We can always put the training wheels back on.”
Like Kruly, board Chairman Robert M. Glaser stopped short of confirming a change in the board’s status. But he did indicate the board is likely to approve the county’s four-year plan.
“This is the best plan that’s ever been provided to us,” Glaser said Monday.
The revised four-year plan from County Executive Chris Collins is clearly the motivation behind the board’s possible move to advisory status.
For the first time since it became a hard board, the Erie County Fiscal Stability Authority has publicly praised the county’s plan and indicated a desire to convert back to a soft board.
It was the lack of a credible four-year plan that control board members cited in becoming a hard board in late 2006. A year earlier, then-State Comptroller Alan G. Hevesi called for creation of the board, saying Albany had to “bring in adult supervision.”
Becoming a hard board gave the state-authorized six-member panel — seven, when at full strength — the power to set spending limits, impose wage freezes and reject new contracts.
Collins declined to comment Monday on a possible change in the board’s status but indicated he was hopeful the board would approve his revised four-year plan.
“The county executive remains cautiously optimistic,” said spokesman Grant Loomis. “This plan is an accurate account of the county’s current strong financial position and includes possible fiscal obstacles in the years to come.”
While board members have hinted at a possible change in status, they are just as quick to remind people that, if county finances go south, they are prepared to again expand their oversight.
“The county has a lot of challenges,” said Glaser. “Our concern is that the county executive and the Legislature won’t work together to confront those challenges.”
The board is concerned, for example, about the county’s reliance on $74 million in federal stimulus money and what will happen to the budget once that money runs out.
A new analysis from the board found Collins’ four-year plan balanced in the first two years but with a potential gap of up to $58 million in the last two years.
The plan provides for a wide range of cost-cutting and revenue- raising options in those years, but Kruly and Glaser wonder if county leaders will have the political will to make those tough decisions.
The options range from library consolidation and job cuts to increased user fees and property taxes.
Legislature Chairwoman Lynn M. Marinelli stopped short of predicting how the control board might vote. But she, too, raised questions about the county’s dependence on stimulus money and what that means to the four-year plan.
“I can’t speculate on what they might do,” Marinelli said of the board. “All I want to know is if the revenues and expenditures balance.”
The initial signs of a board in transition became evident in April when Collins and Joseph Goodell, the control board’s vice chairman, appeared together at a news conference to herald an agreement over capital borrowing.
The agreement allowed the control board to borrow $100 million to fix county roads, bridges and buildings. It also ended a two-year-old stalemate that had blocked the county from borrowing money.
“Hopefully, this is the start of a new relationship with the county,” Goodell, a vocal critic of county spending, said at the time. “We, too, would like to go to advisory status.”
A few weeks later, the control board agreed to give Collins more time to work on his four-year plan in what many elected leaders saw as yet another indication the two sides were working together.
Glaser later confirmed that control board members were working behind the scenes with Collins’ staff.
From the day he took office, Collins has viewed a satisfactory four-year plan as his best hope for persuading the control board to revert to advisory status.
If he succeeds, it could provide him one other benefit — a county paycheck.
Collins, following up on a campaign promise he made two years ago, has refused to accept a county paycheck until after the control board turns into an advisory board.
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