Three months into his administration, County Executive Chris Collins delivered his first State of the County speech Wednesday.

Collins said his administration is well on its way to achieving the goals he set out during his campaign, including introducing a private sector attitude, implementing Six Sigma strategies to improve efficiency and bringing transparency and inclusiveness to county hall.

“We are applying common sense to every decision and repeatedly asking the question why?” Collins said. “Too often we hear ‘because that’s how we have always done it.’ People now realize that, in my administration, that answer is simply not acceptable.”

The administration asked department heads to cut their discretionary budgets by 25 percent and are estimating the move will save county taxpayers nearly $6 million this year. They also reviewed county cell phones and take home vehicles, asking employees to justify their use.

“In the end, we eliminated more than 250 phones, pagers and other electronic devices, a reduction of over 35 percent,” Collins said. “These cuts impacted all employees from rank and file to Commissioners and Department Heads. In the process, we will save nearly $150,000 annually.”

But County Comptroller Mark Poloncarz isn’t sure those estimates are entirely accurate. The comptroller was supportive of the move since his office has been recommending reduction of wireless services since 2006. His concern is that the administration has overestimated the savings associated with the move. In a released statement, Poloncarz said only $88,464 of that amount would come from the service reductions with the rest of the estimated money coming from ending on-call pay to 25 employees.

“Our review of the administration’s calculations for this estimate does not reconcile with provider billing records used to pay those wireless vendors,” Poloncarz said. “Until such time as we can verify the cost of wireless service in 2007 based on actual provider billing records, we cannot confirm that the alleged savings will materialize.”

Collins’ concerns for the future included the ECMC/Kalieda merger, upcoming contract negotiations and luring Canadian businesses to the area. If the county is to grow, it must support practices that promote growth with a focus on innovation and the creation of a knowledge-based economy, Collins said.

“Forces that affect Erie County are global in nature. My administration is prepared to lead our region’s rebranding as a community that celebrates and invests in its quality of life, its specialness of place, its unique industries and institutions and its natural geographic advantages as a global gateway to the world,” Collins said. “Sometimes we forget, but we live on the doorstep of a major international border crossing. We need to start exploiting that fact.”

Contact reporter Daniel Pye at 693-1000, ext. 158.

Copyright 2008 - The Tonawanda News