The Erie County Department of Budget and Management today announced the preliminary findings of the budget monitoring report (“BMR”) for May 2018, which indicated strong growth of 4.93% in sales tax through April 2018 and also showed an accompanying positive variance of $9,552,893 for May year-to-date. By comparison, the May 2017 BMR indicated an unfavorable variance of $8,478,351, which means that the May position for Erie County has improved by $18,031,244 when comparing the two years.

“The budget monitoring report for May is great news for Erie County and underscores my administration’s prudent budgeting and scrutiny of county finances. Each year, we work to provide realistic estimates of sales tax growth as an important part of forming the county budget. A healthy increase in sales tax receipts of nearly 5% over that of 2017 is above our conservative estimates but is welcome and will be a boost to Erie County,” said Erie County Executive Mark C. Poloncarz. “The overall positive variance reported by the Budget Department, of which that sales tax growth is a major part, is also welcome. Erie County Medicaid costs were down through May, largely due to greater than expected 2018 savings from provisions of the Affordable Healthcare Act, so that benefit is also reflected in the May BMR and county residents saw a savings of over $2 million there. Taken together, these outcomes reinforce our conservative county budget and reaffirm our close stewardship of Erie County’s finances.”

The positive variance resulting from lower than expected Medicaid costs amounted to $2,014,911 or 21.1% of the total $9.5 million variance. The net sales tax portion of the positive variance is $2,602, 802 or 27.3% of the positive variance total. Monthly budget monitoring reports are required by the Erie County Code and are submitted to the Erie County Legislature and Comptroller.

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