Erie County Comptroller Mark C. Poloncarz today issued a review (the "Review") of the 2003 City of Buffalo's ("City") cellblock agreement (the "Agreement") with Erie County ("County"), which review found that during the first forty (40) months of the Agreement, the County's costs exceeded City payments by $1,662,266.

In 2003, the City and County signed an Agreement in which the City closed the Buffalo Police Cellblock and transferred its functions and personnel to the Erie County Holding Center, under the direction of the Erie County Sheriff.

Poloncarz stated, "Recently my office completed an audit of the operations at the Erie County Holding Center. During that review we uncovered evidence that the County was not being sufficiently reimbursed for all services it provided for maintaining the City's booking and cellblock function. In fact, the County's costs for the Buffalo cellblock function exceeded the City's annual $936,794 payment by a total of $1,662,266 during the first forty months of the Agreement."

"Furthermore, we found that absent any renegotiation of the City's annual payment, the County's costs for the next six and one half years of the Agreement could exceed the City's payment between $5,591,783 and $10,395,246," noted Poloncarz.

The Review also noted that the City has regularly failed to adhere to the terms of the Agreement by making late quarterly payments to the County.

Poloncarz concluded, "This Review demonstrates the need to renegotiate the Agreement in order to reduce the County's growing losses from operating the City's cellblock function. I call upon the Sheriff's Office, working in conjunction with the Giambra Administration, to immediately commence renegotiation discussions with the City on this Agreement."

In addition to this review and the recently-completed Holding Center audit, the Erie County Comptroller's Office is currently conducting an audit of Erie County's use of federal and state homeland security funds, and an audit of the Erie County Correctional Facility.

A copy of the review can be found at the following site: http://www.erie.gov/comptroller/county_audits.asp