It has been reported that Legislator Marinelli, the current Chairperson, has asked "What aspect of our current procedures do you feel is at least partly responsible for the budget crisis that we’ve seen in recent years?" and "What is there in our current law that you feel is defective and needs to be changed?” It has also been reported that she does not believe there is a great deal wrong with the law. Let me count the ways (by no means is this list exhaustive, but it’s a start):
1) In a general manner the elected leadership has too much discretion and little or no policy direction from our legislative body. As evidence of this all you have to do is look at the Erie County Administrative Code and note with minor exceptions it is just a mirror copy of the Erie County Charter. Therefore this must come from the people and be placed in our County Charter. The legislature has abdicated its oversight function and given the executive branch a free pass. It must now act to restore its control.
2) Whether or not we move forward with a County Manager or a County Executive (we should not have both) the qualifications and duties currently proposed under the “hybrid” form of government for a County Manager could be imposed on a Deputy County Executive.
3) Speaking of duties and discretion it would not hurt to place a requirement that the executive branch be required to adopt a quality process improvement method such as Six Sigma and DMAIC used by GE. In doing so it will provide measurements and benchmarks the legislature can use as part of their oversight functions and the executive branch can use for improvements in efficiency.
4) The Charter should be amended to require the annual budget be adopted prior to October 31 of each year. This will allow the voters to properly assess their elected leaders’ performance so that they may cast their vote. On several occasions in this county’s history the voters were told various things regarding the budget and their taxes just to learn after Election Day that it was not as represented. This needs to be changed.
5) The Charter should not be amended to alter the requirement of a 2/3 vote requirement to raise or renew sales taxes and fees. If anything it should be amended to require a majority vote of the county voters to raise or renew the sales tax or fees. This would not inhibit the power of the legislature to raise revenue that it deems is needed to properly run government, but to give the people the choice of where that revenue is to come from because if the sales tax/fee raises/renewals are defeated the revenue would come from property taxes as currently provided in the Charter. If this provision was in effect there would be have been no shortfall in 2005 and the current shortfall in 2007 due to the sharing of the sales tax.
6) The Charter should be amended to require that the revenue and expenditure estimates are reasonable and not too speculative and that they also meet generally accepted accounting principles. Either an independent budget office should be created to review the budget and certify that this requirement is met or this function could be given to the Comptroller. The Charter should also require this certification prior to the legislature voting on the tentative budget. If this was in place we would not have had the 2004 shortfall due to the state no approving an early retirement plan for county employees. Also it would have avoided the potential shortfall if the Rutkowski Penny was not renewed in February.
7) The Charter should be amended to require a four year financial plan as is currently required by the Erie County Fiscal Stability Authority Act together with monthly budget monitoring reports to be available to the public. This requires our leaders to think long term and provides a map for us. This will help discourage one shot or short sighted fiscal tricks.
8) The term of office for the legislators should be extended from 2 to 4 years with a two consecutive term limit. This will provide more time for the legislators to do legislative work rather than campaign work.
9) The Office of County Attorney should be changed from an appointed position to an elected position with a term of office being four years. In recent past the close relationship between the Offices of County Attorney and County Executive has hindered objective evaluation of situations which is unacceptable (i.e. the BOI overpayment issue)
10) The Charter should be amended to provide that every 10 years the following question shall be presented to the voters of the county. “Should a Charter Review Commission be convened for the purposes of reviewing the provisions of the County Charter?” If a majority of voters vote in favor of this question a Charter Review Commission shall be empanelled by a specified method. The people should not have to wait for the very people they seek to change ask to be reviewed.
Do you think the above is a great deal for starters?
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