Still waiting for reform from Erie County Legislature
DAN MEYER Political Columnist
Looking for true reform? Hoping to see some real change to how things have been done in the past? Dreaming of seeing the elimination of the status quo?

Sorry, folks, but if you're a taxpayer who lives, works and does business in Erie County who was hoping that the business practice of politics as usual was being given the boot, you won't find any nice surprises under the Christmas tree this year.

In fact, despite rumors of lots of "give and take" happening during the most recent budget deliberations, in the end it was much more of the same old, same old when it came time to vote on the $1.4 billion spending plan for 2008.

Hearing words like "compromise" and "balance" made me chuckle last week, while phrases such as "fixing some problems" and "eliminating pork and patronage" caused me to let out a roaring belly laugh when hearing quotes and sound bites from some of the 10 county legislators who voted in favor of the budget. They were trying to explain the reasons why they approved the final spending plan crafted under the watch of Joel Giambra.

Yes, indeed, it's politics as usual for the vast majority of the County Legislature. Republicans Michael Ranzenhofer, Barry Weinstein and John Mills and Democrats Michelle Iannello and Kathy Konst did the right thing by voting against a budget that is still elbow-deep with pork barrel spending, promotes the status quo and conveniently ignores the opportunity for real reform.

The budget process this year did include some new oversight provisions that had not been used before. The spending plan also added money to the departmental budgets for the district attorney and the sheriff, providing some much-needed funding to hopefully help prevent greater expenses in the future.

But let's remember that our legislators' biggest blunder may have been the decision they made prior to voting on the budget. By refusing to allow the county's control board to borrow money, they denied that overseeing body an opportunity to ensure savings for taxpayers.

Instead of allowing that to happen, the Legislature plowed forward with a tunnel vision approach to governing this region since their main goal of ridding themselves of dealing with the control board seems to be their main focus.

By blocking the control board's ability to borrow, this esteemed group of politicians believes they are helping to chip away at the power and influence the control board has on the decisions ultimately made by our elected leaders.

Let's not ignore the facts. We, meaning our county government, are still spending entirely too much money despite a continuous drop in population and a very bleak forecast for our local economy. The control board was put in place to help provide assistance and oversee how every nickel and dime are spent. Our county government failed us, and it's the control board's job to make sure that doesn't happen again.

A quick check of the numbers found total spending by Erie County in 2000 at around $1 billion. Here we are now, just eight years later and with approximately 30,000 fewer residents since the start of the new century, now looking at a spending increase from then until now of about $400 million.

Think about that. That's tens of thousands of people who have fled the scene, and still we have somehow found a way to accumulate hundreds of millions more in expenses.

Say what you want about escalating costs related to employee health insurance, workers compensation, pension and retirement benefits, and all of the other rising prices related to fuel and other essentials, the fact remains that the well-documented dysfunction of this region goes hand in hand with the disastrous state of affairs occurring at the state level in Albany.

All of those staggering statistics combined with our obvious lack of sound leadership, an ongoing decrease in the number of quality job opportunities and various other flaws simply too numerous to mention make me entirely too depressed, especially during the holiday season.

True reform? Still waiting. Maybe next year.

(Daniel Meyer is a columnist for the Weekly Independent Newspapers of Western New York. For more information, visit www.wnynewspapers. com. Comments can be sent via e-mail to: meyersmusings@gmail.com. Opinions expressed here are those of the author.)