The Goal: Government That Costs Less and Delivers More
Counties sit between City Hall and Albany, and they shape much of what Western New Yorkers pay and receive. Erie County alone contains 3 cities, 25 towns and 16 villages, 44 municipalities in all, alongside school districts, authorities and special districts. Each layer adds its own overhead. The result is a region that pays a lot for government and too often gets fragmented, slow results.
Change Buffalo PAC proposes a county agenda built on one idea: do fewer things, do them together, and do them well. These proposals focus on Erie County, and on Niagara County where our economies and services overlap.
1. Consolidate and Share Services
- A county shared-services compact. Offer towns and villages a standing menu of county-run services, such as assessment, payroll, purchasing, IT, fleet maintenance and road salt, at cost, so smaller municipalities can opt in and save.
- Countywide property assessment. Move toward one professional, uniform assessment system so similar homes are valued the same way wherever they sit.
- Joint purchasing across the county, municipalities and school districts to use the region’s combined buying power.
- Publish a consolidation scorecard showing where services overlap and what merging them would save, so voters can judge for themselves.
Why: Duplication is a cost residents pay twice: once in taxes, and again in slower, more confusing services.
2. Reform and Unify Economic Development
Erie County’s economic development is spread across a countywide industrial development agency (ECIDA) and separate town-level IDAs in places such as Amherst, Clarence, Hamburg and Lancaster. They coordinate through a shared tax-exemption policy but remain separate agencies.
- Move toward a single, professional countywide IDA, with town input through advisory seats rather than separate agencies competing for the same projects.
- No subsidies for moving jobs across town lines. Incentives should create net new growth, not shuffle existing businesses from one suburb to another or out of the city.
- Clawbacks with teeth. Every incentive should come with clear job and investment commitments, public reporting, and automatic recapture if commitments are missed.
- Publish every deal online: the incentive, the commitment, and the results, in plain language and searchable form.
- Favor broad, predictable tax relief over one-off deals, so every business, not just the best-connected, benefits from a better climate.
3. Tax Relief and Budget Discipline
Erie County’s combined sales tax is 8.75 percent: 4 percent to the state and 4.75 percent locally. Under a 1977 sharing agreement, the county shares a large part of that revenue with cities, towns, villages and school districts. The state authorization for the county’s additional 1.75 percent rate expires on November 30, 2027 unless it is renewed.
- Use the 2027 renewal as a moment for reform. Any renewal of the additional sales tax should be paired with a binding multi-year plan to cut costs and return savings to taxpayers through lower property tax levies.
- A property tax levy cap the county lives by, with exceptions only by supermajority vote and public explanation.
- Modernize the sales tax sharing formula to reward municipalities that consolidate services and grow their tax base.
- Long-term financial planning with published four-year forecasts and independent review.
Why: Taxpayers will support investment when they trust that every dollar is being used well.
4. Supercharge the Land Bank
The Buffalo Erie Niagara Land Improvement Corporation, the county’s land bank, was formed in 2012 under New York’s Land Bank Act. Using 2010 Census data, Erie County counted more than 36,000 vacant properties countywide, more than 20,000 of them in Buffalo.
- Speed up tax foreclosure and transfer of abandoned properties so they reach the land bank before they decay further.
- Sell to owner-occupants and local builders first, through transparent, competitive processes with clear timelines.
- Bundle scattered lots into buildable packages for small developers, and pair them with pre-approved plans from the city.
- Report results publicly: properties acquired, sold, rehabbed and returned to the tax rolls.
5. Skills That Match Real Jobs
- Employer-led training at SUNY Erie and Niagara County Community College, designed with local employers in advanced manufacturing, health care, logistics and the trades.
- Apprenticeship expansion with county support for small and mid-sized employers who take on apprentices.
- Remove barriers to work such as unnecessary occupational licensing requirements and gaps in transportation to job centers.
6. A Bi-County Partnership with Niagara
- Joint tourism and waterfront strategy linking Buffalo’s harbor and Niagara Falls into one visitor experience.
- Shared infrastructure planning for roads, water and sewer systems that already cross county lines.
- Aligned economic development so Erie and Niagara market the region together rather than competing with each other.
How This Connects
These proposals extend the PAC’s plans for Municipalities and Efficient Service Delivery and Reimagined Tax Systems. Return to the Turnaround Agenda, or see our proposals for the City of Buffalo and the Buffalo-Niagara region.
