Letters to the Editor
Kevin Gaughan rehashes his sorry agenda once again
By Jim Mulcahy
Feb 2, 2008, 18:26

On Tuesday, January 15, 2008 Kevin Gaughan brought his road show to the Grand Island Town Board. His purpose was to shame [my word, not his] them into eliminating two councilman seats. His rationale is that Erie County has too many elected officials, 439 by his count.

The cost of employing these individuals amounts to some $32 million per year. He believes that these positions are what are holding Erie County back from its rightful place as the economic and cultural leader of our fair country.

When one scratches below the surface, though, his numbers and reasons don’t add up. Of the 439 positions a number of them are justices of the peace, highway superintendents, and town clerks. We could eliminate these as elected positions but the workload won’t disappear. Would he really rather have more civil service employees? I certainly don’t.

On Grand Island we have nine elected officials: a superintendent, four councilmen, two justices of the peace, a highway superintendent, and a town clerk. Forty-four percent can’t be eliminated.

For arguments sake, though, let’s say only one-third can’t be eliminated and this holds true throughout the county. This leaves 292 elected officials. If we eliminate two seats out of every five remaining positions, we will reduce the number of elected officials by 120.

How much does this save? In the aggregate, we spend $32 million on all 439. One-third, or $10.6 million, is for those whose positions can’t be eliminated. The remaining positions cost $21.4 million. Eliminating forty percent would $8.56 million. Actually, it would save less since the positions to be eliminated are part-time and account for much less than forty percent of the cost. It would be a stretch if they accounted for thirty percent, or $6.42 million.

With approximately 700,000 people living outside the city of Buffalo in the county, each would save, at best, $9. This assumes that the money wouldn’t vaporize elsewhere in the budgets and be used to leverage even more money in the future. It also ignores the fact that the remaining councilmen will be doing more work and will over time get part of the saved salaries re-allocated to them.

Two Councilmen positions on GI, if I read the 2007 budget figures correctly, amount to about $60,000 all-in. The General fund expenditures were $5.866 million. Therefore eliminating these two slots would save at best 1% of the budget. The Town’s general fund budget is about 10% of our property tax burden. So, Grand Islanders would save 1/10 of 1% of their property tax bill. Brilliant.

Eliminating the seats would make it easier for pressure groups to get their way. There are fewer people to be lobbied. If you think I’m mistaken, notice that the teachers’ union loves the U.S. Dept. of Education because it means only one place to lobby instead of 50.

Lobbyists, in general, would rather lobby at higher levels of govt. You get more bang for the buck.

He said that we spent over $320 million in the past ten years on these officials. (Why didn’t he go back 20 years and make it a cool half billion?) He then goes on to say that if we had saved even $150 million look what we could have done: re-opened libraries, torn down the skyway (which isn’t Erie County’s to tear down), and, as almost an after-thought, reduced taxes. The only way you could do any of the things he envisioned if we eliminated the positions would be to send the savings to a countywide “kitty” to be spent on his pet projects.

How many communities would do that? The $60,000 gross savings on GI would be easily absorbed into other projects here on the Island.

It is interesting that he bemoans our too many elected officials. No other community has such wasteful practices he told us. He continually reiterated the fact that we have more than anywhere else. However, he is all in favor of re-opening libraries. Erie County had the highest number of libraries per capita anywhere on the planet. These should have been obvious to close. But with his savings, we could spend it on them, even though they are never open on a holiday!

He cites Williamsville as having the highest number of elected officials per capita. This is the most prosperous community in Erie County: people always moving in, good schools, etc. Clearly, too many officials aren’t hurting them. When I pointed out that inconsistency, he mumbled and went on.

Since this grandiose scheme won’t save any money and won’t change the economic dynamic in the area, why do it? Qui bono? (Who benefits?) He’ll say, see we have done as well, or as poorly, with fewer officials, so let’s have another round of cuts/consolidations. Trust me this is where he is headed. Regardless of what he says or how he says it with that unctuous, Uriah Heep delivery he wants regional government.

This is a stupid idea. Keep in mind, stupid ideas never die, they just keep getting recycled. People still advocate socialism. The US Founding Fathers devised a system that restrained jerks. They knew that we weren’t always going to elect the Angels Gabriel or Michael as chief executive. They put restraints on the process. They wanted division of political units and more competition, not consolidation and raw power.

Keep in mind his one world solution could give us the Buffalo school system with Phil Rumore, not Grand Island, Amherst, or Williamsville. It could give us Joel Giambra or Tony Masiello, not Pete McMahon.

Mr. Gaughan isn’t adverse to govt. spending, in fact, he is all for it. He just wants to spend it the way he thinks is best, not us. He wants regionalism. This ‘daring’ us to eliminate some seats is a prelude to his saying, “see we don’t need all of these local govt. units, and let’s have one big govt. that tells everybody what to do.” He will show us the path to a better life.

He truly believes he is morally superior to all of us. Then he hopes to impose his vision of no “sprawl” (translated: I don’t like how you spend your money or where you choose to live) and other schemes to do as he sees fit. He has contempt for those who live out in the suburbs, although he has toned down his rhetoric on this in recent years.

He has never, to my knowledge, called for the elimination of any countywide expenditure, whether subsidizing the Bills, the Sabres, the IDAs, anything. He has never led a charge to reform NY State’s Medicaid program. It is a disgrace.

The County tax burden is over 25% of the burden on Grand Island. Most of it is the exceedingly generous Medicaid spending: NYS spends more on Medicaid than Texas and California combined, even though it has 1/3 as many people.

For most communities school taxes account for over 50%, in some cases, over 60%, of the local tax burden. We shouldn’t forget workmen’s comp costs. These are the causes of the demise in all of upstate NY. Again, he has no problem with that. He just wants to centralize power.

Other problems are the regulatory labyrinth that businesses and homeowners have to navigate to get anything done. Even though there is no direct govt. budget item these activities cost money to the individuals. Big money! They discourage enterprise. No one is going to establish a factory in WNY that doesn’t have deep roots to the area
(New Era Cap, for instance.) It is too costly.

The NYS tax code favors human capital: lawyers, doctors, investment bankers, etc. who only get taxed once on their earnings, but not a second time on the value of their capital. Most anything that can be done in WNY can be done cheaper elsewhere.

Speaking of the county legislature and executive, why not eliminate them? Go back to the Board of Supervisors. Any evaluation will show that we prospered more under that form of govt. structure than we are under this.

We hear complaints continually about how Albany ignores us, that our elected officials are too far removed from the localities they are supposed to serve. His regionalism scheme is more of the same.

The communities he compared us to: Baltimore, Charlotte, and Indianapolis; are different. No doubt about it. Charlotte and Indianapolis have strong business presence: Bank of America and Wachovia in Charlotte, Eli Lilly, RCA, and the Indianapolis Speedway in Indianapolis.

Charlotte may have only one school district but the school bureaucracy isn’t as powerful, and many send their kids to private schools. Both communities are conservative and have minimalist govt. compared to us. Baltimore isn’t a safe place to live. Their harbor area is nice but keep in mind that it doesn’t get the weather our lakefront does. It also benefits from being close to pork-barrel central: D.C.

He protests too much that his dream of regionalism is dead. He still fervently believes it. He is a big, oppressive government fan. The dispersed nature of govt. in Erie County prevents power-mad folks like him from getting his way. This is a good thing. Gridlock works.


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