After two weeks of contentious debate, the Erie County Legislature on Thursday approved one of the biggest short-term spending plans in county history.
Lawmakers voted 7-4 along party lines for the $123.7 million plan presented three weeks ago by County Executive Mark Poloncarz, with Democrats voting in favor and Republican-supported legislators voting against it.
"We had a contentious deliberation process, justifiably so," said Legislature Chairwoman April Baskin. "It was a lot of money."
The plan allocates money coming to Erie County government from the American Rescue Plan or through restored state funding to sewer system improvements, parks and building improvements and community assets, including the Botanical Gardens and the Buffalo Niagara Convention Center. It also funnels millions into restored or new county jobs and retroactive hazard pay for county employees. Money will be spent on everything from new water towers to athletic fields.
People are also reading…
The spending package represents the largest single windfall to Erie County since 1998, when large tobacco companies settled a lawsuit by 46 states by agreeing to pay billions of dollars, into perpetuity, for the damage to public health their products caused. The county's share of the settlement was $548 million, but the county took 30 years of payments upfront in 2000 by selling the income stream to investors, yielding nearly $212 million.
Unlike the tobacco settlement, all of the federal stimulus money must be allocated by 2024.
Spending highlights
The full spending plan document runs more than 20 pages long, listing some projects getting tens of millions of dollars and others in line for as little as $11,000.
The biggest ticket items outlined in Poloncarz's original plan include:
• $32.7 million for countywide sewer improvements. Joseph Fiegl, deputy commissioner of sewerage management, said that Erie County has enough sewer lines to stretch from here to Disney World and that sewage treatment systems and buried infrastructure have a major impact on public health and clean water.
• $14.3 million in county parks improvements, including $4 million for the renovation of the deteriorated Wendt Mansion at Wendt Beach Park in Derby, restroom and paving projects at Chestnut Ridge Park in Orchard Park, and shelter, restroom, building and paving improvements at Ellicott Creek, Como Lake, Seneca Bluff and Emery parks and Grover Cleveland Golf Course.
• $13 million to repair and rebuild two county buildings. That includes the front exterior of the building at 25 Delaware Ave., home of the the District Attorney's Office and state and county courts, where pieces of granite are falling off the building. And it includes a new replacement Harlem Highway Barn in Cheektowaga.
• More than $6 million in "premium pay" – basically retroactive hazard pay – for certain essential county employees who came to work during the first three months of the coronavirus health crisis. Premium pay was estimated to cost $6 million, but the Legislature amended the spending plan to make retired county employees eligible for the money and are investigating how to provide premium pay to employees at Erie Community College and Erie County Medical Center.
• $5 million for the expansion of the Erie County Botanical Gardens.
• $5 million more for road funding. This is in addition to the $26 million in road funding budgeted for 2021, said Public Works Commissioner William Geary. The county typically earmarks between $30 million and $40 million in road repaving and repair funding each year.
• $4.5 million to update the facade of the Buffalo Niagara Convention Center with more modern steel cladding so it looks less like a concrete bunker.
Poloncarz's RENEW Plan – Reinvest in Erie's Neighborhoods and Employ our Workforce – also calls for creating 35 jobs and restoring 107 of 287 mostly vacant jobs that previously had been cut to save money. Nine of the new jobs will be for the creation of a new Office of Health Equity to address county health disparities.
The money for new and restored positions would create $8.8 million in recurring expenses in future years.
Political positions
As expected, the Republican-supported minority caucus attempted, but failed, to subvert Poloncarz's spending proposal Thursday by introducing its own proposal. The Democratic majority said more time would be needed to consider the feasibility and ongoing cost of many of the ideas presented by the minority caucus on short notice.
"I think what we ended up with was something that was responsible," Baskin said. "I believe what passed today was addressing public need. The public needs opportunities for employment. The public needed us to restore jobs that had been cut. People who have been laid off needed to come back to work. We have a sewer system here in Erie County, and we needed to make sure that it is sustainable and not going to deteriorate."
She and other Democratic legislators noted that the county will receive $89 million in additional American Rescue Plan money next year. They suggested that would be a better time to consider the minority caucus' proposals for things like expanded sewer service, high-speed rail line service to Niagara Falls and Ellicottville, and a Buffalo port of call for cruise ships touring the Great Lakes.
Minority Leader Joseph Lorigo dismissed those comments as lip service.
The Republican-supported legislators voted against the RENEW Plan, saying it was rushed and developed internally by county leaders without any public input. They also complained the plan was padded with pet projects in Democratic legislators' districts and did not focus on enough big-picture projects that would be truly transformational.
"I'm disappointed," Lorigo said. "We had an opportunity to talk about it, deliberate, get input from the public and make the right decisions, and we didn't do it."
The minority caucus pushed for a 30-day public comment period before making any decisions. Legislator Christopher Greene, R-Clarence, pointed to what the City of Buffalo is doing with its stimulus money.
"They picked out what were the important things that needed immediate attention and moved those forward, and then asked for public input for the rest," Greene said.
Poloncarz called it a priority for the Legislature to approve the spending plan before its August recess so that the county can start bidding out projects and get to work on them before summer ends.
In a statement Thursday afternoon, Poloncarz expressed disappointment that the spending plan passed on party lines, accused the minority caucus of employing "delay tactics" and thanked the Democratic majority for their support.
"The Legislature's passage and affirmation of my administration's RENEW Plan demonstrates that Erie County is moving forward to build back better following the Covid-19 pandemic and advancing our community for the future," he said.
