After nearly two and a half years as a “hard” board, the Erie County Fiscal Stability Authority has turned much of its power back over to county government.

The board entered into what at the time was called a one-year control period in November 2006, after Joel Giambra’s administration presented a four-year plan fraught with unanswered questions. The roughly $50 million gap between spending and revenues served as the board’s justification for taking a more active role in managing county affairs, despite cries of foul from the Rath Building. The issue was even taken to court, but in the end the control board prevailed.

There it sat, eliciting complaints from legislators, the executive and the county comptroller that the board was obstructing county government, until Tuesday. That’s when the board reviewed County Executive Chris Collins’ newly revised four-year plan, gave it the thumbs up and withdrew back into the advisory status where it started.

Now that the reigns have been loosened, Collins will no longer need to get approval for contracts over $50,000 or to hire new employees. He was upbeat about what the move says about his administration’s success and the state of the county.

“I am very pleased that a year and a half into my administration, my team was capable of demonstrating to the control board our firm understanding and proper management of county finances,” said Erie County Executive Chris Collins. “The county’s financial health and respect for hard-earned tax dollars remains the number one priority of my administration.”

The executive can also began accepting his $104,000 a year salary, now that his campaign promise to take only a dollar a month until the control board went back to advisory status has been fulfilled. And he wasn’t the only one claiming a piece of the credit for the development.

Erie County Legislature Chairwoman Lynn Marinelli said the legislature has worked hard since the 2005 budget crisis to keep the county books in the black. Charter reforms, mid-year budget hearings and monthly budget monitoring reports are only some of the changes she pointed to in a statement heralding the move.

Mark Poloncarz, Erie County comptroller, said four consecutive years of budget surpluses, a bolstering of the general fund balance and credit rating upgrades for the county from all three Wall Street rating agencies proves the county is on the right track.

“(The control board’s) action reaffirms what I have been saying for three years — that Erie County’s fiscal situation is stable and based on current data there is no need for (them) to be in a control period,” Poloncarz said.

Control board Executive Director Kenneth Vetter said the old adage “Success has many fathers, but failure is an orphan” certainly rings true today, but added that everyone claiming the credit actually deserves some this time.

“Everybody’s pulled together,” Vetter said. “This is something that didn’t happen overnight.”

Vetter said the arrangement will let the control board get back to doing the evaluations it was designed to perform, gauging how county re-engineering efforts are going and reviewing opportunities for use of state efficiency grants. With staff’s time being split between those duties and reviews of contracts and hiring, not as much planning could be done.

“We’re hoping to provide more overall guidance,” Vetter said.

© Copyright 2009, The Tonawanda News