It appears as if Erie County’s legislature and County Executive Joel Giambra’s administration have found common budgetary ground.

The Legislature received the $1.1 billion budget last month and passed it back to Giambra without any drastic overhauls. Monday, Giambra rubber-stamped what minor changes the Legislature did make, OKing the budget and vetoing nothing.

“The Legislature put their priorities on the budget by making changes they felt were important,” Jim Hartman, budget director for Giambra’s administration, said last week. “But they preserved its structurally integrity.”

By structural integrity, Hartman was referring partly to the controversial extra 0.75 percent sales tax, which is projected to bring most of the $90 million to $100 million the county spends on cultural and service-based programs. The rest, nearly $1 billion, is mandated by state and federal governments. The tax was passed in the first of two votes by the county by a slim margin. It will go to the state Legislature in 2007, and then come back to the legislature for a final vote.

Final hurdle

Consequently, the actions of both Legislature and administration could be rendered meaningless by the county’s control board, formally called the Erie County Fiscal Stability Authority, which is almost guaranteed to leave its own mark on the budget.

The board has until Jan. 1 to accept or reject the budget, and could give itself even more power than it did during its Nov. 3 decision to enter a “control period.”

About 10 jobs were added in the 2007 budget at a time when board members were looking for heavy cuts across the board as part of its desire to see re-engineering in county departments. They also look skeptically on the $52 million set aside for capital projects.

All that skepticism, and all kinds of control over the county’s finances, increases the likelihood that the control board will take action on the budget, possibly even setting specific spending limits on items, such as personnel and capital spending, they view as excessive.

Icing on the cake?

To top off the control board’s exasperation, the Legislature passed about $40,000 in cost-of-living raises to about 15 legislative staff members. The employees hadn’t received adjustments in seven years, while other county employees had.

Lawsuits

And if the situation wasn’t already overly speculative, here’s another layer. All sides are waiting on the results of a lawsuit filed by Giambra’s administration that the control board’s Nov. 3 decision to grab power over the county’s finances was illegal. The state Supreme Court Justice on the case, who has been meeting with lawyers from both sides behind closed doors, is retiring before the year’s end and is expected to make a decision before then.

Contact Dan Miner at 693-1000, Ext. 115.