Awesome

Kudos and big ups to WGRZ for their series on patronage. Here's some statistics from the first story: Gorski left Giambra an $85 million surplus. We are now looking at a $200 million deficit. Gorski had one Deputy CE, who earned about $101k, and didn't have a county car. Giambra came in and had two Deputy CEs; Fisher and Calabrese, each of whom earned $107k/year, and both of whom received county cars. Giambra created "Fleet Services" which allegedly reduced by 40% the number of county cars in use, but also created two new appointments, totalling $150k/year, and one of whom is Giambra's brother-in-law. More statistics: Monroe County has about 750,000 residents. Erie has about 940,000. Monroe County has 4600 county employees. Erie has 9,000. 10% 1% of all Erie County residents are also County Employees. Monroe County's CE has a staff of 5, totalling $375,000/year. Joel Giambra has a staff of 19, totalling $1,160,000/year. Giambra's a Republican With all due respect to 1% of Erie County's population, I think that cutting the fat at County Hall may lead to a rejuvenation of the dreaded private sector, leading hopefully to shiny new privately funded jobs for the 1/3 or so of you (minimum) who, quite frankly, will have to go. Update: My math sucks.