Accomplishments

 

 

 

 

 

 

Erie County Executive Chris Collins

 

Getting Results for Taxpayers Now

Leading by Example

Achieving Significant Savings for Taxpayers

Employee Relations that Bring Value to Taxpayers

Bringing Accountability to Those Using Taxpayer Dollars

Providing Leadership in the Face of Adversity

Introduced Erie County’s Road to a Bright Future to focus on Rebuilding the Local Economy

Unprecedented Leadership for Communication and Collaboration

 

Getting Results for Taxpayers Now 

 

Erie County Executive Chris Collins is running Erie County like a business with a focus on long term taxpayer savings. His emphasis is to return Erie County to prosperity to provide a bright future for all residents. After just 17 months in office he has successfully challenged the status quo and implemented innovative policies that provide value to taxpayers. He holds himself accountable for results. The following is a partial summary of accomplishments by Erie County Executive Chris Collins and his team.

 

Leading by Example

 

• During his campaign, County Executive Collins pledged to work for $1 per month until the state

   appointed control board reverts to advisory status.  Holding himself accountable to bring fiscal

   stability to Erie County, the County Executive established the Brighter Future Fund with his donated

   salary. The Brighter Future Fund has donated over $183,000 to various not-for-profits in the WNY

   area.

 

• Collins drives his own personal car, pays his own expenses, and uses his own personal cell phone. He

   also eliminated take home cars for his senior staff and lists all take home cars on the county web site to

   provide transparency to the public.

 

• Collins instituted a comprehensive review of all cell phones in the county and was able to eliminate over

   250 phones, pagers, and BlackBerry’s, saving over $100,000 per year in the process.

 

• On his first day in office, Collins ordered an across the board cut in discretionary spending for all county

   departments of 25%, including his own, with significant reductions in the Executive office.

 

 

Achieving Significant Savings for Taxpayers

 

• As a result of fiscal discipline demanded by County Executive Collins, Erie County ended 2008 with a

   $14 million surplus when governments across the New York were facing deficits.

 

• During his campaign Chris Collins vowed to bring Lean Six Sigma, the private sector efficiency program

   utilized by some of the worlds most profitable companies, to county government. As a result, Lean Six

   Sigma has been the County Executive’s key reform initiative already generating millions of dollars of

   savings while allowing taxpayers to receive better services at less cost. Overseeing this effort is Bill

   Carey, a Six Sigma Master Black Belt. The Erie County Workforce now boasts 200 yellow belts, 36 green

   belts and 3 black belts. These empowered employees are actively working on numerous projects in social

   services, parks, highways, mental health, senior services, central police services, probation, purchasing,

   budget, health, emergency services, and personnel.

 

• Collins has initiated a program to review all owned and rented county properties with the goal of bringing

   efficiency to the space utilization process within Erie County.

 

• The County Executive and County Attorney successfully negotiated a deal with the Control Board,

   Legislature, and Comptroller that ended a two and a half year deadlock on capital borrowing that had

   stalled over $130 million of capital projects. Capital borrowing had not been done for 2007, 2008

   and 2009 due to fundamental differences between the parties centered on the life span of the Control

   Board.

 

• Collins terminated the five-year old City/County parks agreement which was running nearly $4.2 million

   over budget. By initiating an aggressive renegotiation process, the county is now maintaining City parks

   at real costs.

 

• Currently, Erie County provides huge subsidies to Erie County Medical Center, one of the few hospitals

   outside of New York City that relies on a county government for support. Collins spearheaded the

   ECMC/Kaledia joint governance agreement under the Berger Commission. The County Executive demanded

   and won a critical victory to establish a 10 member physician advisory board to oversee the merger,

   which will ultimately protect the hospital’s assets while limiting taxpayer subsidies.

 

• In order to get Erie County out of the hospital business once and for all, Collins appointed a 5 member

   commission charged with achieving that goal. The ultimate success in this effort will remove a major

   financial burden from county taxpayers that has consumed hundreds of millions of dollars in subsidies.

 

• Taking advantage of legislative procedure, Collins effectively neutralized the anti-business, anti-taxpayer

   Apprenticeship Law, rendering it null and void in Erie County. This law forced contractors bidding on

   County projects to provide union approved apprenticeship programs disqualifying many contractors

   from the process and driving up costs to taxpayers.

 

• The County Executive implemented a new hiring program designed to maximize the use of regular part

   time (RPT) employees instead of full time employees. This action saves the county close to $1 million

   per year based on reduced employee benefits.

 

• Promptly after taking office, Collins removed Erie County as a full partner in the 800 MHZ Statewide

   Wireless Network and opted instead to be a gateway partner. Initially criticized by state officials, an

   independent audit by State Comptroller Thomas DiNapoli praised the County Executive’s decision calling

   it “a model to be used across the state.” Collins’ decision saved Erie County over $17 million.

 

• In his first official act as County Executive, Collins removed Erie County from a lawsuit that targeted the

   Seneca Buffalo Creek Casino, opening the way for $330 million in private development in downtown

   Buffalo.

 

• Collins finalized a new social services transportation model called the Center for Transportation

   Excellence. By utilizing GPS and mobility management, this program serves as a statewide model for

   efficiently delivering transportation services to Medicaid patients.

 

• Collins was shocked to find that Erie County used an inefficient paper time keeping and payroll system

   that was ripe with abuse, manpower intensive, and wasteful. A new electronic swipe card system is

   replacing the antiquated paper based system.

 

• Collins ended Erie County’s involvement in the Women Infants and Children (WIC) program. The County

   had been a WIC vendor for New York State. The State paid the salaries of the County workers who

   administered the non-mandated service, but Erie County was paying for the workers’ retiree health care.

   Collins did not want to compete with non-profit organizations who wanted to administer the program.

   Terminating the County’s involvement in WIC saved taxpayers more than $1.2 million.

 

Employee Relations that Bring Value to Taxpayers

 

• Collins overturned a legislative initiative that would have provided an $800,000 payoff to AFSCME union

   workers in order to break an impasse in union negotiations. This was accomplished by aggressively

   working with the Control Board to reject this action. AFSCME returned to the bargaining table with no

   taxpayer payoffs.

 

• Collins inherited 9 expired union contracts. In the effort to negotiate new agreements, the County

   Executive indicated that all new contracts would have to include “give-backs” similar to what has been

   seen in the private sector. These “give-backs” include eliminating retiree health insurance for new hires,

   employee contributions towards health insurance, eliminating summer hours, reducing paid time off, and

   work rule changes.

 

• In 2009, the County Executive successfully negotiated a historic new contract with the New York State

   Nurses Association (NYSNA) that eliminated retiree health for new hires, includes cost sharing for health

   insurance for all employees, includes cost sharing for retiree health for current employees, eliminated

   summer hours, reduced holidays and paid lunches, and incorporated key work rule changes. The contract

   was approved by the NYSNA membership 3-1.

 

Bringing Accountability to Those Using Taxpayer Dollars

 

• Shortly after taking office, the County Executive spearheaded an effort to reform the Erie County Industrial

   Development Agency (ECIDA). Appointing new board members who serve as Chairman and Vice Chairman,

   the ECIDA has embarked on a new course of economic development with innovative new policies that

   underscore jobs of the 21st century and provide incentives for adaptive reuse of abandoned properties in

   the City of Buffalo – the 3rd poorest city in the United States.

 

• As a new member of the ECIDA board, Collins was shocked to discover that the ECIDA had not initiated a

   competitive bid process for professional services in over 18 years. Collins challenged the status quo and

   was successful (11-7) in implementing a full RFP process for all professional services.

 

• Collins took the lead in contract negotiations with the Buffalo and Erie County Convention and Visitors

   Bureau (CVB) to increase county oversight and demand accountability. The new contract demanded that a

   5 year strategic plan be developed by the Board, something that had never been done before. This new

   comprehensive 5 year strategic plan is now the cornerstone of CVB activities, marketing and sales

   strategies.

 

• Collins recently negotiated new contracts with all cultural agencies in Erie County that receive County

   funding. The new contracts have language that require the cultural organizations to provide strategic

   plans, cash flow projections, and other measures that assure that taxpayer dollars are being spent

   wisely.  Cultural organizations are also encouraged to provide multi-lingual signage and translation

   services to support the Global Gateway initiative of the Road to a Bright Future.

 

• Collins has completely revamped the process by which the Erie County Cultural Resource Advisory Board

   (ECCRAB) recommends support for various cultural organizations. Providing over $5 million in annual

   support to dozens of organizations, the new process is much more comprehensive and will assure that

   taxpayer money is properly used.

 

Providing Leadership in the Face of Adversity

 

• During February 2008, Erie County experienced a Hepatitis A emergency when an employee who was

   infected handled produce at a popular supermarket. This unprecedented event resulted in over 10,000

   people being vaccinated and inoculated by the County in a coordinated effort led by County Executive

   Chris Collins. This event was one of the largest vaccination events in the history of the United States.

 

• One year later tragedy struck our community when Continental Flight 3407 crashed in a residential

   neighborhood, killing all 49 passengers on board as well as a resident in the home that was destroyed by

   the crash. County Executive Collins was one of the first public officials on the scene and immediately

   declared it a State of Emergency. Throughout the night and the next few days, the County Executive worked

   to ensure the cooperation of Erie County departments and other government agencies in the recovery,

   investigation, and family support efforts.

 

Introduced Erie County's Road to a Bright Future to Focus on Rebuilding the Local Economy

 

• Economic Development agenda focused on 10 key economic areas that capitalize on Erie County as a

   Global Gateway Community bordering Canada. Erie County is located at the center point of a mega region

   stretching from Toronto, through Southern Ontario, to Rochester, Syracuse, and up to Ottawa and

   Montreal.  Home to 22 million people and $530 Billion of economic output, this mega region is the 5th

   largest in North America.

 

• Implemented a Vision for Erie County as a world class community where People want to live, Businesses

   want to locate and Tourists want to visit.

 

• Created a Council of Economic Advisors, which meets quarterly, made up of 40 community leaders and

   decision makers to collaborate and coordinate economic development efforts.

 

Unprecedented Leadership for Communication and Collaboration

 

• Initiated quarterly meetings with all 44 Town, Village, and City Supervisors and Mayors to discuss

   regional challenges and solutions.

 

• Formed the Upstate Mandate Relief Commission in conjunction with Monroe County Executive Maggie

   Brooks and Onondaga County Executive Joanie Mahoney. On December 15, 2008 the commission released

   a list of recommendations for Governor Paterson and the NY State Legislature to consider.