Bitterness was to be checked at the door Thursday as Erie County lawmakers welcomed their overseer, the stateappointed control board, to discuss the pressing matters of the day.

Over the next two hours, however, legislators found themselves bristling at the Fiscal Stability Authority’s handling of business. Consider:

• The control board, after hiring a financial adviser and bond underwriter, wants to refinance some government debt, saving $4 million over the next 15 years. But the numbers show the county probably would save more over those 15 years if the control board were dismantled.

  Several lawmakers and county officials are hoping — however unrealistically — that the State Legislature and Gov. Eliot L. Spitzer will disband the control board after re-examining the need for the panel.

• The county has lost about $5,000 a day in interest income since the control board halted the sale of tax liens to an outside company early this month. The board has offered no help to salvage the arrangement.

  The only option so far calls for county officials to seek new proposals from a wider array of companies. County leaders say they suspect that new offers will be less attractive than the $36 million a Morristown, N.J., company was willing to pay.

• More than a year after the state gave the control board $18 million to spend on government- efficiency projects, about $17 million remains unawarded. County officials have proposed 10 ideas, and seven have been rejected with the argument that they don’t offer “recurring savings.”

  The $10 million shared with the City of Buffalo for “efficiency grants” has been devoted to eight city programs, including $4.4 million to provide wireless Internet access in the city and to service “video intelligence cameras” in neighborhoods.

County Legislator Robert B. Reynolds, a Hamburg Democrat who leads the Legislature’s Finance and Management Committee, had invited the county control board to clear the air on several matters. He asked that Thursday’s discussion not dissolve into bickering.

Of the six current control board members, only Kenneth Kruly attended. He sat with Kenneth Vetter, the board’s executive director. In tow were representatives of Capital Markets Advisors, the board’s financial adviser; Roosevelt and Cross , its bond underwriter; and Phillips Lytle, its law firm.

Those officials used the forum to argue that the board should borrow money on the county’s behalf, saving money on finance costs because it has a superior credit rating.

But several lawmakers say they suspect that, by borrowing money, the control board is trying to insulate itself from any effort by the state to abolish it. Lawmakers say they doubt the control board could go out of business before its scheduled expiration in 2040 if it owes money to creditors.

After County Comptroller Mark C. Poloncarz said that refinancing county debt makes little financial sense right now, County Legislator Cynthia Locklear, D-West Seneca, said the argument boils down to a question of credibility. She said she gives more credibility to the elected Poloncarz than the control board.

“If we could get the control board out of Erie County,” added Legislator Thomas Mazur, D-Cheektowaga, “we would save a lot more not having you than having you.”

More worrisome to lawmakers was the control board’s decision to scuttle a contract with Xspand of Morristown, N.J.

The company was willing to pay $36 million for the right to collect and keep overdue property tax payments the county has been unable to collect itself. The money would have pushed the county’s reserve fund above the $50 million goal and helped officials pay off some debt ahead of schedule.

The deal did not enthuse control board members. They indicated they especially disliked the fact the county had received only two offers.

When County Budget Director James M. Hartman asked for guidance on how to get the matter moving again, Kruly said the administration should seek offers more widely and not have “some bureaucrat in the Rath Building deciding this company is OK and this one is not.”

In the meantime, the county is losing money.

If the county is not going to hire an outside company to collect past-due taxes, should it hire more staff to undertake the job itself? Reynolds said the Legislature might have to decide soon whether to spend about $600,000 on such an effort this year.

“At what point does it become too late?” Legislature Chairwoman Lynn M. Marinelli, D-Town of Tonawanda, asked later in frustration, since the Legislature cannot force either the control board or county administrators to make the next move. “What can we do to compel this?”

mspina@buffnews.com

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