Sharing is so nice and so happy and it makes ponies and doves and puppies happy and smile. Sharing makes rainbows and stops little girls from crying. Sharing is sugar and spice and everything nice. Sharing is gumdrops and lollipops and popsicles and summer’s morning dew.

Back in 1985, the Erie County Legislature, with the permission and approval of the New York State Legislature, passed an extra 1% sales tax - a “temporary” sales tax that has come up for - and passed - renewal every year since. It was passed to plug a County budget hole back then, and the City doesn’t receive a share of that particular 1%. (To call it a “penny” is really facile propaganda).

In that 21 years, when the County was flush with cash, the call went out to share part of that particular sales tax with the municipalities in general, and Buffalo in particular. (God forbid anyone actually consider repealing or refusing to renew the bloody thing).

Today, the Erie County Legislature voted 11-4 to allocate and share $12.5 million generated by that 1% temporary sales tax to the municipalities. (Loughran was the lone Democrat to vote against the sharing proposal). This came about because Assemblyman Paul Tokasz was holding this year’s renewal of that 1% hostage. Tokasz demanded that the County allocate $30 million from that 1% for the municipalities, or else the Assembly would refuse to renew that “temporary” tax, which, if abolished, would throw the budget $105 million into deficit this year.

Happily, the County Leg was able to negotiate that down to $12.5 million. Unfortunately, they couldn’t negotiate it down to zero.

And why? Why am I so against sharing?

Because the timing is bad. It’s suspect. The County has a shiny new control board, and last year’s Leg actually got its shit together enough to pass a 4-year recovery plan that the control board found acceptable. And now, after all that work, Tokasz demands that the whole plan be thrown out of whack. The county will have to find that $12.5 million somewhere now.

Because, as Tokasz himself pointed out 9 years ago, your property taxes are probably going to have to be raised to make up part of (if not all of) that difference. Tokasz, Peoples, Hoyt and Schroeder signed a letter pledging that the State would “help the County of Erie through various means to achieve long term fiscal stability” by providing state funding for some items, such as Probation expenses, prisoners, and (mercifully) “Containment of Medicaid costs and increased Medicaid Fraud efforts.”

Whether all of that will add up to $12.5 million is up in the air. Tokasz and Volker have promised, according to Giambra, to “hold the County harmless” and make the money up to the County. Dr. Barry suggested that the County get a firm deal from the State.

George Holt hailed this “great day” for the City of Buffalo, evidently not realizing that many of his constituents pay property taxes to the County of Erie.

And all of this returns us to our theorem; that County government is bloody pointless. If the idea was that the State would make up the $12.5 million to the County, then why didn’t the State just hand over that money directly to the municipalities ostensibly benefitting from this sharing arrangement? Why does the County always have to be the middleman?

The State came to town and threw its weight around. It got the EC Leg to do its bidding - and again, look at the scenario: The State takes the credit for this “great day”, and the County gets a Hobson’s Choice.

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