North Coast Online

The Company You Keep

After giving birth to 5 rollicking little Howards, my mother constantly and often unsuccessfully struggled with her weight.  Dad used to laugh that over time her circle of friends had shrunken to a "small" group of truly obese women in which Mom could finally be the "skinny" one.

Report calls Erie County 'low-cost, low-tax'

Erie County government spends the least per capita and has the smallest county work force, relatively, among the 12 largest counties in New York State, a top member of the county administration has concluded.

In a letter to the Erie County Legislature, James M. Hartman, director of management initiatives, also pointed out that Erie County spends the second-largest percentage of its budget on mandated Medicaid, behind only Monroe County.

Hartman's figures, based on 2006 county budgets, also claim that Erie has the second-lowest local revenue per capita, ahead of only Niagara County.

He continues.

"However," he wrote, "we should recognize that by comparison to the other major New York counties, we are a relatively low-cost, low-tax government operation."

Giambra said the 24-page report provides overwhelming evidence that the county is well managed and in pretty decent shape.

Yeah, well, we're still fat.

Giving The Devil His Due

I won't ever forget (or forgive) David Swarts' suggestion that the Erie County Charter be revised to make it easier for elected officials to raise taxes.  I will, however, give him credit for actually improving the county's DMV.

Given Erie County's cash collapse and its Legislature's inability last year to achieve carefully considered and targeted spending cuts or reforms, a recent restoration of services and revenues by the County Clerk's Office deserves some applause. New Auto Bureau locations make life a bit easier for county residents, and promise a badly needed - and rare - profit.

I've seen it first-hand.  The closest DMV office for me is the one downtown just behind the Central Library.  And in the last 3 years I'd been there three times and walked out in disgust without completing my transaction.  The place was a crowded hell-hole where seeminly apathetic employees joked around (with each other) and occasionally took a minute to throw a requested form your way.  I invariably ended up at the Northtown Plaza office.

So it was with not a little trepidation that I ventured back downtown at the end of January to renew the registration on the ol' F150.  Northtown's not around any more and I'd procrastinated too long to wait for the mail.  Downtown I went -- and I was amazed.

The place was still crowded, but there was a difference.  The information desk line moved quickly and I got the needed forms within a couple minutes.  And, lo and behold, there was an express lane!  With only 4 or 5 people in it!  And two windows to serve it!  And I qualified for it!

Bear in mind that this was on January 30 when everyone in the county was scrambling to take care of such things and I was in and out in 15 minutes.  I'd guess that the former employees had been laid off and that more senior staff now work that office but the "system" has obviously been revised; and for that Mr. Swarts deserves some praise.

Now, about that tax increase thing.

I Hate It When This Happens

For at least the second time in this calendar year I'm going to write the three fateful words:  Rod Watson's right!

Now that a reform committee has endorsed his [Joel Giambra's] call for a county manager to manage what should have been managed by the executive, taxpayers also could end up paying a new salary in perpetuity.

     Thanks, Joel.

I'm sure I'm not the only one having a hard time digesting the call to create this new form of government - and the new budget line to pay for it.

     Why is the idea so hard to swallow?

You can start with the fact the county manager would be selected by the county executive and confirmed by the Legislature.

     Wouldn't those  be the same folks  whose judgment we  don't trust in the  first place?

     It's hard to fathom how that will  solve much, even if  the new office is  supposed to be autonomous.

City or county manager forms of government can be pretty effective -- but Giambra's proposal would simply add another high-paid position to the County payroll that would be answerable to both the Executive and the Legislature -- an impossible position,  It's only a diversion from our problems; certainly no cure. 

Were  Giambra, however, to suggest the abolition of the Executive's position and propose a County Charter revision that would require the legislature to come up with a budget and then discharge the responsibility for executing that budget to a hired manager who would be evaluated on how efficiently he performed, I'd be rather intrigued. 

The current suggestion though is just a way to spread the blame to yet another (in this case) highly-political appointment.

Back To The Future

While I agree with the Buffalo News, I'm surprised at its naivete.

It's astounding that leadership in county government can be so out of touch in the face of the unprecedented debt already piled up. It's incomprehensible that some department heads continue as spendthrifts after the largest voter revolt in county history. It's unbelieveable that they wouldn't weigh every expenditure against the budget absolute.

In the end there was no taxpayer revolt.  Yes, there was a lot of talk, tons of bluster and valiant efforts to mount one; but it was stillborn.  When Erie County's voters sent an overwhelmingly Democratic majority into County Hall last November, their messsage was clear.

"We're tired of all this budget talk.  It's ugly, our family is losing government jobs, union workers are unhappy and we might need Medicaid to pay for our nursing home no matter who pays for it.  We just want things to be like they used to be when the Democratic machine ran the show and there were no complaints."

And so it is.  Who could fault the County lawmakers and employees for correctly reading the mood of the electorate?  Same wise electorate will likely elect a New York City Democrat as governor next year --  so we can speed up the process of taxing and spending ourselves back into prosperity.  Excelsior, y'all.

Maybe It Will Trickle-Up

I've been pretty depressed over the seeming death of the Erie County taxpayers' revolt which unintuitively led to a huge Democratic majority in County Hall and a resultant slew of tax increases (no surprise there.)  But there are signs that the revolt lives on in the suburban town governments.

Maybe there's hope.

The Mohan Chronicles

The effort to recall Satish Mohan has become a minor topic of conversation at the office -- probably half of the 1,000 or so people where I work (at the "company" as Jaquandor might put it)  live in or around Amherst -- and my unscientific water-cooler poll would indicate he doesn't have a thing to worry about.  I wonder how long it will take Amherst's public employees to realize that?

Amherst is not like Buffalo or even neighboring Cheektowaga where union sentiment runs strong and no one has ever pulled a lever below the top row.  Its population is educated and relatively well-to-do -- and would like to stay that way.  I'd guess that scrutinizing the finances, holding supervision's feet to the fire, and ruffling some "feelings" won't raise an eyebrow.

And playing the recall-card this early on -- he's only been in office for a bit more than a month -- indicates to me that there's some really nasty stuff ready to be discovered.  It's funny.  Amherst has always been considered one of the better-run towns in Erie County.  I suspect we're about to find out that wasn't the case at all; the politicians have simply been able to keep  enough money sloshing around up there to make it all look good.

That worked in Buffalo for the better part of a couple centuries.  Mr. Mohan appears to be ensuring Amherst that it won't have to wait that long.

Gym-dandy

I really tried hard to get worked up over the "gym"  that the County proposed to build in County Hall.  I tried but I just couldn't. 

My first thought was to use the $128,000 "wellness" grant to pay for gym privileges across the street at the BOC.  But a quick tap on the calculator showed that would only buy about 3 or 4 hundred one-year memberships.  And those would likely go to county employees who already work out.

So, if they actually could put 6 treadmills, a shower, and a refrigerator in the Rath Building why not do it?  A few people might get in a little better shape. But it's probably emblematic of our recently-found disgust over local government's excesses that even sensible ideas are now rejected out of hand.

Tokasz Called Out

I was very pleased to see that the Buffalo News understands the reasons behind Paul Tokasz's push for the County to share the sales tax -- and is willing to print it.

     What changed [Tokasz's formerly anti-sharing opinion]?

In large part, it is the occupant of the county executive's office and his challenge to the State Legislature to do something about Medicaid's runaway costs. Joel A. Giambra, a Republican whose own party has shunned him, said he would share sales tax income if Albany reformed the Medicaid program to save counties money.

Albany's going to get Giambra one way or the other; and if they have to screw Erie County in the process.  Well, that'd be a two-fer.

Satellite DMV's

 I was appalled at County Clerk David Swarts's suggestion that the charter be revised to make it easier for the county to raise taxes.  However, his excellent proposal to locate satellite DMV's at ECC and in several town offices redeems him somewhat in my eyes. 

Sharing Is Not A Moral Imperative

Am I alone in understanding that the pressure on Giambra to "share" increased sales tax revenues is damaging to the county and nothing more than a political attempt to make him even more unpopular with suburbanites?