ERIE COUNTY: State budget cuts may add to county’s costs

Staff Reports

Everyone is bracing for the cuts that Gov. David Paterson has recommended all over the 2009 New York State Budget, and Erie County Comptroller Mark Poloncarz has gone over the plan to find out how the county will be affected.

Poloncarz said there are several areas that will affect the local economy, but only a few that will directly affect the county’s costs. Money for road improvements could be one of the hardest hit spots.

The executive budget reduces Consolidated Highway Improvement Program funding for counties by $59 million state-wide, approximately 20 percent. Based on 2008’s budgeted county CHIPs revenue of $7.5 million, Poloncarz said the county could lose as much as $1.5 million if the cut is approved.

County costs for holding inmates on their way to state prisons is another concern. The comptroller’s office has found housing these prisoners is nearly double the $37.60 per day rate of state reimbursement.

“An audit by this office of the County Holding Center, released in January 2007, found that in 2005 the county incurred $1.2 million in additional expense for state-ready inmates and parole violators due to the difference in payment between the state rate and actual County cost.”

There are also plenty of reductions in public assistance programs, but Poloncarz acknowledged that County Executive Chris Collins’ office would be better equipped to figure out how those changes would hit the county.

“Due to the complexity of these programs and limited resources, we defer to the county administration and its Department of Social Services to analyze the potential impact of these programs,” Poloncarz said.

Other cuts are tough to gauge since institutions have their own budgets to deal with, but could come knocking on the county’s door if state cuts have them coming up short. Paterson proposes reducing funding to local public library operations by $13 million, meaning the Buffalo and Erie County Public Library system will likely get less assistance than in previous years.

“This will have a negative impact on its budget and could require additional assistance from the county to keep them at current budgeted levels,” Poloncarz said.

Education is slated to take the biggest hit, but most of those services aren’t related to the county. The budget proposal would reduce the county’s share of expense for the preschool special education program from 40.5 percent to 38 percent and the state share from 59.5 percent to 47 percent, leaving local districts holding the bag.

New revenue streams are also of concern to the comptroller, especially the new law taxing cigarette sales on Indian reservations.

“Given past troubles and difficulties involving the State’s two prior attempts to collect said taxes on the Seneca Nation of Indians sovereign land in Erie County, this office believes that this revenue stream is not likely to materialize in 2009,” Poloncarz said.

While the governor’s budget has stirred plenty of bee’s nests, having the changes make it through is another story. Paterson has proposed his budget recommendations a full six months earlier than was required, so there’s plenty of time for changes to be suggested.

But with the state staring down a gap of $13.1 billion in the coming budget and bigger gaps in subsequent years if nothing is done, getting by without hurting some groups isn’t likely. Still, economic necessity has to get past political inconvenience for state legislators.

“This is the governor’s proposed budget, and as we have seen in the past, the adopted state budget is often radically altered by the time it has been fully adopted by the New York State Assembly and Senate,” Poloncarz said. “Therefore, it is difficult to say whether any of these proposals will be included in the final adopted state budget.”

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