Erie County Executive Christina Vogel’s administration is preparing for one of its most biggest responsibilities since taking office: presenting its first budget proposal to County Council this fall.<\/p>\n
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Since taking office, Vogel has already tackled several campaign priorities, including reopening the courthouse caf\u00e9, addressing the county’s tiny homes issue, and working on the re-entry program. However, administration officials said the upcoming budget process will be one of the most important jobs they have to tackle next.<\/p>\n
County Executive Christina Vogel and her staff have been reviewing past budgets and evaluating the county’s current financial position as they work toward creating a balanced spending plan.<\/p>\n
“We took a deep dive into how our cash is managed, the changes that were made, and various open positions that are going unfilled. Do they need to be filled? We need to look at that,” said Chris Groner, the Director of Administration. “We’re also looking at the method that the budget was written in.”<\/p>\n
Groner said Erie County is currently in relatively strong financial shape and is carrying very little debt.<\/p>\n
“I think there are three years left on the radio tower at the 911 Center, and that’s the only debt service the county has,” Groner said. “But we need to be cautious of how we use that tool. We don’t want to rush back into debt because we are able to. We would like to lay out a predictable capital budget and maybe avoid taking on debt. That would be preferable.”<\/p>\n
One of the administration’s primary goals is to present a balanced budget that does not require dipping into the county’s reserves.<\/p>\n
In addition, Groner said the administration wants to streamline the budgeting process by implementing formal mid-year reviews with County Council.<\/p>\n
“We want to get an actual, formal mid-year review with council and formalize that process,” Groner said. “That will give us a moment to pause, take a look at where we are mid-year, and course correct if we need to. Another area is formalizing how we budget for capital improvements so that a capital budget becomes part of next year’s overall budget.”<\/p>\n
Like many newly-elected county executives, Vogel inherited her first operating budget from the previous administration. Groner said studying that budget has been critical in shaping the administration’s approach moving forward.<\/p>\n
“We are always going to be looking at operations to determine if they bring value to taxpayers,” Groner said. “We also take very seriously the services we provide. We don’t want to negatively affect those services. We need to look at what a county is charged with doing, what our obligations are to taxpayers, and whether we’re fulfilling that role effectively and efficiently.”<\/p>\n
The administration is also focused on finding ways to reduce spending and increase revenue.<\/p>\n
According to Groner, changes to cash management practices are expected to generate approximately $200,000 in additional annual revenue. The administration is also reviewing programs and positions that may no longer be necessary.<\/p>\n
“Looking at the expenditure side, we’re identifying funds we aren’t going to continue with, like the tiny homes project, and evaluating positions that remain open,” Groner said. “In total, we feel we’re going to be able to claw back between $3 million and $4 million. That’s significant, but it’s not enough.”<\/p>\n
Another key objective is creating a dedicated capital improvement plan. The administration hopes to establish a five-year outlook that prioritizes major infrastructure and facility projects.<\/p>\n
“We want to take a five-year forward look and prioritize,” Groner said. “There’s never enough money to do everything we want to do, but there are significant projects that can’t be deferred anymore. We’re going to prioritize those projects and figure out how to handle those big-ticket items in a manageable way.”<\/p>\n
The administration is also exploring ways to create room in the budget for future initiatives, including Brownfield remediation, blight reduction efforts, and programs aimed at supporting small businesses.<\/p>\n
Groner knows these goals are ambitious for a first budget cycle, but is confident they can handle it.<\/p>\n
The proposed budget will be presented to County Council in the fall. Council members will then review the proposal and have the opportunity to approve it, make changes, or send it back to the County Executive for revisions.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Erie County Executive Christina Vogel’s administration is preparing for one of its most biggest responsibilities since taking office:…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":227612,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[12],"tags":[16989,98699,98702,1524,98703,9363,98700,136,142,138,137,98701,17259],"class_list":["post-227611","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-erie","tag-budget-proposal","tag-capital-improvement","tag-cash-management","tag-christina-vogel","tag-county-administration","tag-county-council","tag-debt-service","tag-erie","tag-erie-county","tag-erie-headlines","tag-erie-news","tag-mid-year-review","tag-public-finance"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/227611","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=227611"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/227611\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/227612"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=227611"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=227611"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=227611"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}