March 9, 2011
By Matthew Spina
Erie County Comptroller Mark C. Poloncarz, who signs the county’s checks, says he will pay the new county attorney only the Legislature-authorized $99,000 a year, not the $150,000 that the county executive promised.
“Our office disagrees with the county executive’s assertion that he can unilaterally set the rate of pay for the attorney in any amount of his choosing,” Poloncarz said Tuesday.
He said his office will process Jeremy A. Colby’s paychecks only if calculated at an annual salary of $99,226 — the amount county lawmakers allowed when they adopted the Erie County budget for 2011.
As expected, the county executive’s team disagrees with Poloncarz.
“Once again, it appears Mr. Poloncarz needs to be reminded what his job is,” said Grant Loomis, a spokesman for County Executive Chris Collins.
He said the county Personnel Department — which the county executive controls — sets pay rates, not the comptroller.
But a Poloncarz aide countered by saying the comptroller issues the county’s checks. And until the matter is resolved, Poloncarz sees no way to pay Colby, a Lancaster resident, more than $99,226 a year.
During his recent confirmation hearing, Colby said he was expecting the $150,000 a year that Collins offered. He said he didn’t think the amount was too much for the chief legal counsel of a $1 billion entity and mentioned that he made more as a partner with the Webster Szanyi law firm.
The 12 county lawmakers attending a special session Tuesday, Colby’s first day, confirmed him as the new county attorney.
He succeeds Cheryl A. Green, who resigned last summer as head of the Law Department, which defends the government from a host of claims, processes contracts and runs legal interference for elected leaders, especially the county executive.
Here’s how the latest county drama began in the weeks before Colby was hired:
* In drafting his 2011 budget, Collins set the salary at $150,000, arguing he needed to offer that much to draw a well-qualified attorney. Taxpayers had paid Green about $125,000 a year.
* As the Legislature reviewed the budget, a majority of lawmakers cut the amount to the level that the county’s pay grades establish for a starting county attorney: $99,226.
* The county executive, who under county rules cannot veto a Legislature’s cuts in spending, declared the cut to the county attorney’s salary “null and void.” To Collins, the cut violated a legal technicality so he shouldn’t have to follow it.
He lost on that argument and the arguments that supported his other “null and void” declarations when Legislature Democrats took him to court to require him to follow their budget decisions.
State Supreme Court Justice Joseph R. Glownia recently agreed to hear the Collins case again because the first court arguments were hastily arranged during the budget-adoption maelstrom. However, Glownia refused to set aside his ruling in the meantime. The Collins team says that it will appeal if he rules again that the County Charter does not allow a county executive to declare cuts null and void.
* Meanwhile, Collins ignored much of Glownia’s decision — and the Legislature’s cuts — when he set the 2011 property tax rate. He set the rate to collect nearly $8 million more than the Legislature’s budget required. That $8 million includes the almost $51,000 in dispute for the county attorney.
“The salary at $150,000 is reflected in the tax levy,” said Loomis, the Collins spokesman. Loomis noted Tuesday that Legislature Chairwoman Barbara Miller-Williams, D-Buffalo, certified the property tax levy, one of the annual duties that come with the position.
With the court case expected to take months, Poloncarz has said that he is willing to discuss the matter further with Collins or his lawyers and that they would have at least several days to do so before Colby would receive his first check.
Collins also can ask the Legislature to alter the 2011 budget to allow the higher salary. The Legislature often goes along with midyear budget changes.