Updated: 12/01/08 07:57 AM

By Matthew Spina
NEWS STAFF REPORTER

Once the Erie County Legislature approves a 2009 budget today, the veto clock starts ticking.

County Executive Chris Collins has a week — until next Monday — to reject the Legislature’s decisions. But he can’t veto just anything.

The County Charter lets county executives veto only the Legislature’s additions to spending. He can’t veto the cuts.

So the Legislature’s planned cuts on several fronts are safe from the veto pen.

The decisions to spend more on culture, the county’s youth and Buffalo’s Olmsted Parks, among other things, are not.

The Legislature’s decision to scrap the tax-rate increase that Collins had proposed also appears safe, for the most part. In Erie County, the county executive controls the tax bills and can fine-tune the tax rate before the bills go out in January to address foreseen gaps.

Collins has not tipped his hand on whether he will veto anything.

But his team responded to the amendments drafted by Legislature Democrats last week with displeasure and said budget aides would have to study the changes through the weekend.

“The county executive proposed a conservative, balanced budget to move this county forward in tough economic times,” Collins spokesman Grant Loomis said.

“The Legislature majority’s proposal simply shifts many of today’s problems into the future, so its members can make politically popular decisions,” he added. “. . . We are hopeful the Legislature does the right thing for the future of Erie County when it votes on the budget on Monday.”

County Comptroller Mark C. Poloncarz can’t say the budget will balance next year. He warns that a midyear deficit will leave lawmakers with little choice but to cut services.

“I had said to several legislators that it would be very difficult to end up with a balanced budget if they cut the tax increase,” Poloncarz said. “We all want to see reduced taxes. My office’s obligation is to see that we have sufficient funds to pay our expenses. I would love to be able to say we will be able to do that. But I cannot say that at this point.”

Poloncarz sees a few weak spots, the most serious being the failure to budget a multimillion-dollar obligation to Erie County Medical Center and its Erie County Home.

Collins has predicted he can persuade ECMC officials to essentially waive the largest unbudgeted ECMC expense, a $5.3 million payment due in March. The Democrats have decided to wait and see if he can accomplish that.

The Legislature is to meet at 1 p. m. today to formally approve the amendments that majority Democrats drafted last week.

The 12 Democrats who control the Legislature cut spending by about $9.5 million. The Democrats also figured the government could save $1.7 million more than Collins assumed he would save keeping jobs vacant and then hiring replacements for less money — the “turnover savings.”

The Democrats plan to cut $2 million today from the “risk retention fund”—a self-insurance fund used to pay legal claims against the government.

Meanwhile, the Democrats have agreed to rid the 2009 budget of the tax rate increase that Collins had insisted was necessary. It would have added $18 a year to the tax bill on a $100,000 home.

Still, the Legislature will keep the nearly $600,000 in fee increases Collins had proposed by ratcheting up fees charged in the parks, at the two county-run golf courses, in the county clerk’s office, the county-run health clinics and the medical examiner’s office.

Legislature Democrats intend to buttress the aid going to cultural groups by about $280,000; restore $280,000 to the Cornell Cooperative Extension; and give $161,500 to the Soil and Water Conservation District when Collins gave the district no county dollars for 2009.

The Democrats also intend to establish a $360,000 fund to let the Olmsted Parks attract matching grants from other sources and will add $100,000 for “Operation Prime Time” youth programs.

None of the Democrats has opposed the package of amendments unveiled Wednesday. If the budget package passes by at least 10 votes it could presage the defeat of a Collins veto, because 10 lawmakers, a two-thirds majority, are required to both raise a fee and override a veto.