Call on Collins Administration to Make Good on Promises and Stop Withholding More Than $1 Million in Funding to Culturals from 2010
Funding Adopted, Yet Withheld Just Another Example of Administration’s Budget Gimmicks to Manufacture Surpluses
ERIE COUNTY, NY—Today, Erie County Comptroller Mark Poloncarz applauded the Legislature’s approval of $300,000 in capital funding for more than one dozen cultural institutions, many of which had their operational funding zeroed out of the 2011 Budget by the Collins administration.
“While it is quite clear that the Administration had no real process to determine who should receive the funding and their true motives behind releasing this funding, regardless, $300,000 will go a long way to help many of our cultural organizations struggling after being cut out of this year’s budget,” said Poloncarz. “I thank the Legislature for doing their due diligence to inject accountability into a funding process that has had anything but. My office will now do its due diligence to ensure the Collins administration lives up to its promise and actually releases this approved funding.”
Poloncarz noted that this isn’t the first time the Collins administration has promised funding the cultural organization and hasn’t delivered. As part of the 2010 Adopted Budget, the Collins administration and Legislature agreed to allocate $6.56 million in operational funding to 50 institutions, however, according to the County’s audited year-end financial statements, Collins only released $5.37 million, withholding nearly $1.2 million in operational funding promised, but not delivered. Forty-eight (48) of the 50 organizations promised funding were short-changed, with 14 of them having their entire allocation withheld.
Poloncarz continued, “While we can all agree that all of these organizations are worthy of the $300,000, it pales in comparison to the more than $2 million slashed from the 2011 budget or the more than $1.2 million Collins promised, but hasn’t delivered as part of the 2010 budget. If the Collins administration wants to claim they are a friend to the arts and cultural community, he should immediately release every dollar promised in 2010 as well, especially considering the County ended 2010 with a substantial surplus.”
Nearly all of the organizations receiving a portion of the $300,000 grant today for capital improvements had some or all of their promised funding withheld last year, including the African American Cultural Center which was originally allocated $132,411 but only actually given $65,000, a difference of $67,411 in promised funding.
This $1.2 million has remained in the County’s General Fund Balance. Hiding funding, by budgeting more than is actually allocated, along with higher-than-anticipated sales tax revenues and receipt of more than $44 million in federal Stimulus funding, helped Collins manufacture a $23.8 million surplus, which he claim credit for in early March.
Poloncarz concluded, “By budgeting more money for the cultural organizations in 2010 than he ever planned to use, Collins effectively ‘hid’ the money, using it to further pad his manufactured budget surplus. When you take away his financial gimmicks, the smoke and mirrors, and his refusal to spend tens of millions of dollars of federal job creation assistance and do the math, the true Collins’ record appears: a record of that is built on a house of cards.”