Buffalo, NY (WBEN) With the stroke of a pen, ownership of Highmark Stadium changed hands Monday. Erie County Executive Mark Poloncarz says the county has a new role.

“We go from the owner, the landlord, to basically being a vendor who was hired to provide these services,” says Poloncarz. “We are providing services, but we’re getting reimbursed by the Bills for our costs.” He says the county will provide stadium security through the sheriff’s office. “We are providing public works and closing of roads and other types of things on game days, as well as emergency services. Our Department of Homeland Security emergency services will be there, as well as our emergency medical services,” explains Poloncarz.

But unlike in prior years, the county actually will be reimbursed for costs. “We’re not looking to make money, but we have an agreement with the Bills, and they will be paying us our basically our cost per game to provide these services, just as if they had to hire someone else,” notes Poloncarz.

Poloncarz says the state has similar departments,, but not able to perform at the same degree as the county. “They have a Department of Emergency Services and Homeland Security, but they were like, we don’t really want to do that. The same thing with Public Works; they have transportation, but it’s our road, and we just decided in the end, after it just took us in here with the Bills, that we could provide these services, but they wouldn’t be free now because we don’t own the facility, and so we negotiated and were able to enter up payments where they agree to pay us a cost as if they’re a vendor at our cost,” notes Poloncarz.

he says the county is not looking to make a profit. “We’re not making money off of this. We will break even from our costs, which is a first because we’ve been paying the team millions of dollars annually for costs associated with the football stadium and the team, and not getting reimbursed for these services. Now we don’t pay anything, and we get reimbursed,” adds Poloncarz.

The county transferred control of the stadium to the state Monday.