By Joyce Kryszak
Buffalo, NY – Reform efforts in Erie County government appear to be losing some ground. WBFO has learned that a retired top official with the Erie County Department of Social Services is collecting a pension while still on the payroll.
After 28 years as a county employee, Richard Agrisano retired from his $74,000 a year post as Supervisor of Personnel for Social Services. Agrisano stepped away with a full retirement package, including a roughly $49 thousand pension and full health benefits. But Agrisano is getting one more benefit -- a paycheck for the job he never really left. He was hired back ten days after retiring. Agrisano says there's nothing unusual about it.
"I'm not the first, and I won't be the last person who has retired and continued to work under retirement laws as a part-time consultant," Agrisano said. "This is not new."
That assertion was confirmed by two other top county officials -- the Personnel and the Social Services Commissioners. Social Services Chief Michael Weiner says this is a temporary strategy.
"This is a stopgap measure to maintain continuous personnel responsibilities for our workforce," Weiner said. "If we didn't have that person, we wouldn't have anybody else to assign to that function."
According to Weiner, the position can not be filled until Agrisano's vacation time is used up in January. Agrisano was hired instead into a vacant post as an assistant deputy commissioner. The technicality provides Agrisano with a nice little bonus. He can earn up to $27,000 a year without impacting his pension benefits.
But County Personnel Director John Greenan contends it also saves the county money.
"It's one employee. You don't buy two health insurance policies for him. If we brought in a full-time person right away, we'd be paying health insurance for two individuals," Greenan said.
Still, when added together, Agrisano could end up making at least $3,000 more a year than before he retired.
The County Legislature, concerned about improper hiring, passed a law earlier this year requiring its approval of any filled vacancies. Greenan says they were advised by the county's former attorney that the law is unconstitutional.
"They don't have the legal authority to determine whether a position should be filled or not," Greenan said. "The President of the United States doesn't have to go to Congress every time he wants to fill a position. The reason for that is the separation of powers between the executive and legislative branches."
But Democratic Majority Leader Lynn Marinelli says the matter is still undecided. Marinelli says the law that she introduced and the full body approved was vetoed by the County Executive. Lawmakers then over rode the veto. But Marinelli admits that the Legislature doesn't know where the law stands.
"We're going to have to check with counsel and hear what the county attorney has to say," Marinelli said.
Marinelli says Social Services has been submitting reports detailing who is being appointed. But she says they have not been seeking the Legislature's blessing of those appointments. Marinelli says the Agrizano appointment sounds like an example of the end-run games the law was intended to prevent.
"That's what we were trying to get to the past year -- to get some sense of what it was costing the county for management employees and what kind of policies are in place to make sure that there isn't this kind of trend of someone coming off the payroll but then coming back on," Marinelli said. "We need a level of accountability and fiscal restraint."
Although Marinelli acknowledges at this point the law is being flaunted, she says it may well take some muscle from the Fiscal Stability Authority, as well as action from the Charter Review Commission to achieve that accountability.