BUFFALO, N.Y. — Over the past two years, some of Erie County's top administrators have collected hundreds of thousands of dollars in overtime pay due to changes and policy and interpretation about how "Managerial Confidential" employees are compensated.

With the county's state of emergency now over, County Executive Mark Poloncarz said overtime in his administration has come basically to a halt.

"We just went through a very, very rare pandemic in which there was quite a number of overtime that was built up, but in most situations, there's almost no overtime that is built up on an annual basis," he said.

However, controversy over reports showing the county health commissioner and employees in the sheriff's office sometimes nearly doubling or tripling their salaries has led to the new county comptroller calling for changes. Among the discussion at a meeting he's called next Wednesday, will be whether some or all of the MCs should be salaried.

"I think it's going to shock people that most of our administrators are underpaid compared to other counties, some substantially," Poloncarz said.

Poloncarz said he's open to the change which would ultimately be made by himself and the county Legislature, but suggested some employees may need raises if they are no longer to receive overtime, both to satisfy Fair Labor Standards and make sure the county remains competitive for top talent.

"Westchester County basically pays almost every single one of their department heads $195,000 a year, which for some of our department heads would probably be a $70-80,000 raise," he said.

Erie County Legislature Minority Leader Joe Lorigo said the big payouts during the pandemic fall on the county executive and throwing more money at it is not necessarily the best solution.

"I think any time you're talking about raising government employee salaries when the general public hasn't seen raises in years, it's a tough sell,” he said.

Lorigo said he plans to attend the working group meetings but said neither the comptroller, who was previously part of the Legislature majority, nor the county executive seemed interested in addressing the ballooning overtime in the throes of the pandemic.

"I think better late than never to have the conversation," he said. "I think any conversation about overtime needs to first start with a review of the overtime that was paid out and accrued during the state of the emergency and during the pandemic for both the administration and the sheriff's office."

Lorigo said overtime was never an issue in the first eight and a half years he spent in office before the county began paying MCs and allowing buyouts of comp time accrued over 80 hours. He said he's open to some employees getting raises on a case by case basis but the county needs to make sure a new system doesn't allow for potential abuse.

"Maybe we stop taking this one-size-fits-all approach to government and looking at ways that we can give people more flexibility, better compensation and also save taxpayers money, because at the end of the day we're dealing with money that is paid by every Erie County resident,” Lorigo said.

Moving to salaries also potentially means the county wouldn't be able to keep track of how many hours those employees are working week to week.