A message from the County Comptroller:

As you may know, for some time now the Erie County Fiscal Stability Authority (”Authority”) has prevented my office from issuing bonds on behalf of Erie County so that we may complete important public safety and infrastructure projects for the County. When the Authority was created by the state it was never contemplated that the Authority would prevent the County from borrowing during good financial times, but it has done so and these actions have hurt this community.

As a result, earlier this week the New York State Senate and Assembly almost unanimously and with bipartisan support approved legislation to amend the Authority’s enabling act in order to close the loophole that prevented the County from completing its own borrowing even when the County is financially healthy.

While the legislation has passed the state legislature, before it can can take effect Governor David Paterson must sign this legislation into law. Today I wrote to the Governor asking him to sign the legislation into law, and now I ask that you do the same.

Notwithstanding the Authority’s claims to the contrary, the County is well on the road to fiscal stability, having achieved three consecutive years of balanced budgets with surpluses, even when the Authority consistently claimed the County was operating in a deficit. I am proud to say that at least two of those three years’ results happened on my watch, and this year is trending towards another positive year.

Since talking office I have never asked you to take any action but your help is needed now. If Governor Paterson hears from the taxpayers of our community I know he will sign this legislation into law and let our elected leaders, not appointed members of a state authority, borrow on your behalf to complete these very important but delayed projects

Therefore, I ask each of you to write to Governor David Paterson and ask him to sign into law the legislation, which will return representative democracy to Erie County and ensure that needed but delayed capital projects are completed this year.

To do so just click on this link, fill out the required information and cut and paste the below message (after the jump) to the Governor asking him to sign this important piece of legislation into law. If you do so you will have my sincere appreciation, but more importantly, you will help move our community forward.

Thank you and best wishes to one and all,

Mark Poloncarz
Erie County Comptroller Read the rest of this entry »

The County Control Board set up by now-disgraced former state Comptroller Alan Hevesi was supposed to bring Erie County needed “adult supervision”.

The problem is that the state put a bunch of petulant kids in charge of it. As former county Comptroller James Hartman argues,

The ill-chosen members of the Erie County control board do not understand their purpose. Every action they have taken in the past two years was intended to expand and perpetuate their role. They have done nothing tangible to help the county. In fact, their actions hurt the county. Let me explain:

First, they have continuously rejected proposed four-year financial plans. The legislation says that plans should be approved on the basis of “reasonable and appropriate” assumptions. Instead, the board believes it can require guaranteed results. By their strange logic, every government should have a control board because the future is uncertain.

More disturbing, having rejected the county-proposed plans, the board has ignored its statutory responsibility to develop an alternate plan. Consequently, the county has operated for two years with no approved financial plan. This ambiguity makes it harder for the county to get its credit rating upgraded.

Second, these board members have used bully tactics in trying to take over the county’s borrowing. The only reason for the control board to borrow would be if Erie County could not borrow for itself. Saving a few million dollars over 30 years is no reason for the county to give up its credit market access.

It either needs to be dismantled, or else the people populating the control board need to be replaced by Governor Paterson. The Control Board has done nothing to help the county’s fiscal house, and instead costs us $1 million per year that could be used to either pay back the taxpayers or for something that’s actually, objectively useful.

1. Chris Collins submitted a wild-ass guess as to what the county’s revenues and expenditures will be over the next four years.

2. The appointed, unchecked county control board has its own wild-ass guesses as to the next four years’ county finances.

3. The control board rejected Collins’ four-year plan. No soup for you.

4. The law creating the control board suggests that the control board ought to now bring up a counterproposal representing its own wild-ass guess.

5. The control board will do no such thing, remaining perfectly happy to pick hypothetical nits and come up with unique ways to say “no”.

6. We need Governor David Paterson to grow a pair on this issue and reconstitute the board with people who are less political and more professional. Ever hear much controversy coming from the Buffalo control board? No, because the political agenda is not there.