By Tom Precious
ALBANY — Gov. Andrew M. Cuomo last fall publicly backed Mark Poloncarz’s efforts to defeat Erie County Executive Chris Collins.
Poloncarz returned the favor today, with a dose of praise for the governor’s new budget that was unusual by Albany standards for its level of gushing.
Between calling the governor’s various efforts “incredibly successful,” and “bigger and bolder,” and a “major victory” for taxpayers, the new county executive asked lawmakers to join with the governor.
“I urge you to pass the governor’s proposed budget with these reforms and proposals fully intact,” Poloncarz said during an appearance before a joint Senate and Assembly fiscal panel that spent the day delving into the local government aspects of Cuomo’s budget.
The annual legislative hearing process over a governor’s proposed budget has one certain element from the dozens of various interest groups that testify: complaints by groups that rely on state funding.
But Poloncarz wasn’t alone in his praise of the governor.
New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg, who has had his battles with Cuomo, was lavish in his praise of the governor’s budget. And Buffalo Mayor Byron Brown checked through a number of suggestions he hopes the lawmakers could change in Cuomo’s budget, but he did it with surgical politeness.
Poloncarz spent his brief appearance before the Senate Finance and Assembly Ways and Means committees offering his firm support for Cuomo’s plans to have the state assume some of the future growth of the Medicaid insurance program and to create a pension tier for new public employees that would cut employer expenses.
In an interview after his testimony, Poloncarz was asked about the sea change in relations with Albany from the combative reign of Collins to his fledgling period as county leader.
“No, it’s not necessarily a function of Democrat and Democrat,” Poloncarz said of the party ties with Cuomo.
“If you sit there and you close your door and say “I’m not going to talk to you and I’m not going to work with you on anything,’ like the prior county executive did, I don’t think it benefits the community,” he said.
Poloncarz said he would like to have the state assume the total $8 billion tab that counties must pay for Medicaid. But, in talking points similar to Cuomo, that isn’t realistic.
“I think incremental growth is a good thing,” he said of the governor’s Medicaid plan, which Cuomo says would save counties $1.2 billion over the next five years.
“It’s not going to happen overnight,” Poloncarz said of longtime county efforts to get the state to pay for all of Medicaid. “That’s why I’m in favor of this proposal.”
Medicaid is the biggest driver of county property taxes.
In his appearance before the lawmakers, Poloncarz said Cuomo has a “bold plan” for cutting mandates on counties. Poloncarz said the county’s Medicaid costs are expected to grow to $205.3 million this year, up 2.5 percent over the previous year.
Poloncarz pressed for Cuomo’s pension change to lower county costs of future employees, and he heaped praise on the governor’s regional council approach to economic development — a new program he called “incredibly successful.”
The county executive said Albany has long talked of mandate relief and cutting pension costs.
“The governor has followed up on his words with this budget,” he told lawmakers.
If there was one, brief moment of negativity, it was when Poloncarz mentioned that the budget does not include new state money to try to keep the Buffalo Bills from moving when the team’s lease ends next year. But he quickly said that he is convinced keeping the Bills in Buffalo “is as much of a priority for the state as it is for my administration.”
Lawmakers on the panel asked no questions of Poloncarz. But they had one for Brown.
“If you get the billion, will you share it with Syracuse?” Sen. John DeFrancisco, a Syracuse-area Republican, joked about Cuomo’s plan to to direct $1 billion aid to Buffalo area for job creation.
For Bloomberg, who enjoyed the usual packed panel of legislators during his hour-and-a-half appearance, lawmakers came up with dozens of questions.