By Joyce Kryszak
Buffalo, NY – Erie County lawmakers Thursday earmarked nearly seven million dollars in additional reductions countywide. But that's only half of the current fourteen million dollar deficit currently on the books.
The Erie County Budget and Finance Committee met with the heads of most departments Thursday to identify the additional reductions.
Erie County Executive Joel Giambra even made a rare visit to legislative chambers. Giambra urged lawmakers not to put off action until the state comptroller's report comes out in June.
"There aren't any silver bullets. There's no magic here," said Giambra. "We know what the options are. It's time for us to be decisive and show leadership in this crisis."
But Democratic Majority Leader Lynn Marinelli said it is not that simple.
County officials again reported that their departments are already cut to the bone. Marinellli said she expects there will be the eight votes needed to approve this round of cuts next week. Beyond that, she said it gets tougher.
"The problem that Erie County has isn't going to be one solution, or a quick solution, or an easy solution," said Marinelli. "It's going to be a multitude of them that we're going to have to go over and the decisions are going to get harder and harder."
Best case, the cuts earmarked Thursday are still at least fifty-three million dollars away from plugging the budget hole through the end of the year.
Giambra presented his plan to help come up with some of it.
After weeks of studying and pushing his plan for a county run collections unit, the county executive pitched his proposal in person.
The six-person unit would attempt to recover an estimated one hundred million dollars in outstanding fines and fees due to the county.
Giambra has tapped Joe Ciffa to head the unit if it becomes reality. Ciffa calls it a "no brainer."
"It is a new revenue, one that had been owed but not collected that will generate millions of dollars to the county general fund," said Ciffa.
Ciffa said dozens of counties in California have managed their own collections for twenty-five years, collecting an average of fifty million dollars a year.
The legislative committee was split on whether or not to reccommend the plan to the full body. Lawmakers say there are still more questions on the proposal that would cost roughly three hundred thousand dollars annually to run.