Did too little, too late, critics in county say

June 7, 2009
By Phil Fairbanks
Buffalo News Staff Reporter

Unlike in Buffalo, Yonkers and New York City, it was never about dollars and cents in Erie County.

The state’s oversight of county finances was always about leadership — or the lack of it.

Why else would “adult supervision” — in the sarcastic words of then-State Comptroller Alan Hevesi — become so closely associated with the control board looking over Erie County’s shoulder.

And now, that adult supervision is gone.

“Some might ask, ‘What did they do?’ ” County Executive Chris Collins said of the control board last week.

Collins is not the only one wondering.

Five years after it arrived on the scene and more than two years after it greatly expanded its own powers, the Erie County Fiscal Stability Authority is ratcheting down its oversight.

The six-member board Tuesday voted to revert to advisory-only status, giving up the watchdog powers it took on in 2006.

Is it leaving behind a stronger and more disciplined county government and, if it is, how much can it take credit for?

“I think there was a tone set,” said Collins, a frequent foe of the state-authorized board. “I think they helped create a mind-set by looking over the county’s shoulder.”

It wasn’t a long reign, but it was contentious and, in the eyes of some, much too costly.

“They’ve been a multimillion-dollar boondoggle,” said County Comptroller Mark C. Poloncarz, who, like Collins, is a frequent critic of the board.

To hear Poloncarz talk, the control board and its four-member state staff arrived late and did little.

By the time the board went “hard,” the worst of the county’s fiscal crisis was over. And when the board finally did act, such as when it adopted a hiring freeze, the impact on the bottom line was nominal, Poloncarz said.

“I never believed there was a need for the board,” former County Executive Joel A. Giambra said last week. “It was a waste of time and taxpayers’ money.”

No one was more at odds with the control board than Giambra, and no one had more to lose.

To this day, Giambra blames Democrats on the County Legislature for failing to raise the sales tax, one of the decisions that helped trigger the 2005 crisis.

“We didn’t have a budget problem,” Giambra said last week. “We had a political problem.”

Robert Glaser, the board’s third chairman in five years, thinks the criticism is unfair and unfounded.

“It was a thankless job for sure,” Glaser said, “but we accomplished some things.”

He and others on the board point to a $50 million “rainy day” fund, four years of budget surpluses and a county debt diet as evidence of the board’s influence.

When asked about real dollars and cents, he cited $7.6 million in state efficiency grants that came from the board. He also claims the board-imposed hiring freeze saved the county $3 million a year.

Others point to the county’s latest four-year plan, the linchpin in the board’s decision to go back to advisory-only status last week.

Board members say the plan, the first long-term strategy to pass muster with the board, is further proof of their positive impact. The plan, they say, provides a credible foundation for how the county can address the challenges it faces in the coming years.

“We’re going to take the training wheels off and see how it works,” board member Kenneth C. Kruly, a former county budget director, said of the county.

County lawmakers cheered the board’s decision to go “soft” as a welcome end to five years of outside scrutiny.

The board, heralded initially as a watchdog, has not been without its warts, especially in the early days under Chairman Edward V. Regan, a former Erie County executive and state comptroller.

Under Regan, the board was known as much for its internal disarray and lack of direction as for its promise of reform. Regan eventually stepped down, and the board, under new Chairman Anthony Baynes, quickly gained a reputation as a united, bipartisan body.

Today, though, even supporters are glad to see it go.

“It’s time for them to go back into the shadows and let county government run county government,” Legislator John Mills, an Orchard Park Republican, said last week.

Mills is one of the few county lawmakers with good things to say about the board. He thinks the board was needed, in part because Giambra’s administration was “completely off course.”

“They helped stop the bleeding,” Mills said of the board members. “They also kept their eyes on the ball by requiring a credible four-year plan.”

Even within organized labor, among the board’s strongest critics, there’s an acknowledgment now that outside intervention was needed after the fiscal meltdown of 2004, the days of Giambra’s red and green budgets.

One of the primary causes of the meltdown was a stalemate between Giambra and county legislators, a leadership feud that left the county on the verge of fiscal collapse.

“Some oversight was needed,” said Joan Bender, president of Local 815, Civil Service Employees Association, the union representing blue-collar county workers.

Bender had her problems with the board but, overall, found it easy to work with and not nearly the obstacle union leaders feared it would be.

Critics wonder if the board could have done more to reform the county’s labor contracts, which they have called overly generous.

“The jury is still out,” said Andrew J. Rudnick, president of the Buffalo Niagara Partnership. “There are dynamics, especially labor-relations dynamics, that are still at play, even today.”

Rudnick thinks the board provided an influx of discipline at a time when county government seemed rudderless.

Like many, he sees an important distinction between Erie County’s control board and the one that governs Buffalo.

Buffalo, New York City and Yonkers faced crises created by real financial pressures. New York and Yonkers were on the verge of bankruptcy, and Buffalo was dangerously close to its constitutional taxing limit.

Erie County, in contrast, never lost the ability to help itself by cutting costs, raising taxes or borrowing money.

At County Hall, it was the inability of elected leaders to agree on a remedy to its crisis, a failure fueled by mistrust, deception and a toxic political environment.

Is the county’s current leadership any better prepared to deal with the next fiscal crisis, which many think is looming on the horizon?

“They’ve got the keys,” Glaser said earlier this week. “Now, they’ve got to do something with them.”

© Copyright 2009, The Buffalo News