Funding for Repairs on the Erie County Prison Roof
Erie County Executive Brenton Davis said the roof of the Erie County Prison was damaged during a winter storm and now it needs to be repaired.
An ordinance at Erie County Council's finance meeting read that it will take nearly $2 million dollars for the repairs.
Erie County Council Chairman Terry Scutella believes that repairing the roof can be a step-by-step process.
"Some of the roof does not need to be touched for years and other parts of it would last for five years, I think we would piecemeal it and fix a part that is damaged until we look at the budget we got coming up, we cannot just keep taking money out of the fund balance," Scutella said.
Erie County Councilman Charlie Bayle said part of Council's job is to ensure that county buildings are up to par.
"We have to maintain these facilities, we are going to look into a couple of different things, is it worthwhile to maybe do part of the roof and then plan for in graduated increments over the next five years or so, there is a lot more conversation we will have to have," Bayle said.
Davis said the repairs cannot wait and prolonging them is going to eventually cost more money.
"We need to be aggressively doing these projects because the longer you put them off the more they cost, the cost of materials and labor go up, anybody who has done any project around their house knows this, so the time to do these things are now," Davis said.
When it comes to funding the repairs, it is safe to say that Davis and Scutella are not on the same page.
"To me and the average taxpayer out there watching this, how silly is this, this should go to a second reading, it should be funded and we move forward," Davis said.
"All these things keep popping up and popping up, I think this is an administration that runs county government in chaos," Scutella said.