Five women's organizations are sending County Executive Chris Collins a joint statement

protesting his decisions that "damage the well-being and health of women and children" and

urging him to restore the child-care subsidies he ended for some 700 working-poor families.

"We call upon County Executive Collins to make clear by all his actions that his

administration is working to lift up the status of women and children in Erie County and that

he is working to open up pathways to progress for the poor," the statement says.

"We refuse to allow him to use decision-making that prioritizes short-term benefits but

jeopardizes the long-term future of our most vulnerable and valuable citizens."

The statement was endorsed by the YWCA of Western New York, the Western New York Women's

Bar Association, the Women's Fund, the Everywoman Opportunity Center and the League of Women

Voters.

Other organizations involved are VOICE-Buffalo, CSEA VOICE, the Family Child Care Network

of Western New York, the Coalition for Economic Justice, the Partnership for Public Good, and

Peace of the City. Organizers said the groups each year work with more than 30,000 Erie County

citizens.

Collins, addressing cuts in state aid, rewrote Erie County's rules for child-care

subsidies, rendering some 1,100 children from 700 working-poor families ineligible this year.

However, he has said that if Erie County can qualify for new federal stimulus dollars to

subsidize child care, he will expand the program again.

"The county executive is unwilling to use county tax dollars, in this case $10 million to

cover daycare subsidy for 2010 alone, to keep state-funded programs whole after Albany makes

cuts to close its own budget gap," Collins spokesman Grant Loomis said.

"These organizations would be wise to use their time and energy asking New York State

leaders why Erie County's funding was cut, despite being home to the third-poorest city in the

United States," Loomis said of the women's groups.

Still, it was not the only decision that the organizations protested with their joint

"Women Leaders' Statement." They cited a number of Collins' acts, most of which emanate from

his belief that county government should hand over programs that not-for-profit agencies can

administer. The statement cited these developments since Collins took office in 2008:

Collins this year will end an array of services at two county-run health clinics that

primarily treat Buffalo's urban poor. When the County Legislature restored the funding,

Collins aides still ordered the centers to stop scheduling new appointments, arguing that

lawmakers restored too little to operate the clinics all year. Comptroller Mark C. Poloncarz

disputed that calculation by the Collins camp.

Collins expects former county patients to turn to the Sheehan Health Network, Buffalo

General Hospital or Erie County Medical Center, but the women's organizations said that for

those patients none is as "easily reached by public transportation" and none is "designed to

provide primary care services in the same efficient way."

Collins ended Erie County's participation in the Women, Infants and Children nutrition

program to let Catholic Charities implement it in Erie County.

"In the worst economic times since the Great Depression, the administration chose to narrow

outreach to poor families rather than expand it. This shows a lack of concern for Erie

County's most vulnerable citizens that we find troubling," the statement said.

County Attorney Cheryl A. Green has repeatedly stonewalled a federal investigation of the

Erie County Holding Center and the county Correction Facility, despite complaints of sexual

harassment, repeated studies showing the lack of mental health services and health care, as

well as the organizations said.

They called on him to spend some of the county's significant surplus from 2009 — $44

million by Collins' measure — to keep child-care subsidies flowing at previous levels for

another 90 days as he also works with Sen. Kirsten Gillibrand, D-N.Y., to secure new federal

support.

Collins isn't likely to spend any of last year's surplus on a temporary extension of

child-care subsidies. He said he's interested only in a long-term solution.

"The county executive has stated publicly that everything non-mandated in the budget is on

the chopping block," the organizations said in their statement. "Yet our children are the

future and investment in them makes long-term economic sense."