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Joseph M. Hanna Appointed to Erie County Citizens’ Budget Review Commission

News

Joseph M. Hanna Appointed to Erie County Citizens’ Budget Review Commission

May 22, 2014
Joseph M. Hanna

Joseph M. Hanna, Chair of Goldberg Segalla’s Sports and Entertainment Practice Group and Chair of the firm’s Diversity Task Force, was recently appointed to the Erie County Citizens’ Budget Review Commission.

The nine-member commission provides civilian oversight of the Erie County budget, monitors county finances, helps ensure the county’s long-term fiscal stability, prevents the concealment of county deficits, and helps provide the legislature with the necessary information to respond to budgetary problems. Meetings are held quarterly, and the commission provides regular reports to the legislature.

Members of the commission are chosen to represent various professions and roles in the community. Joe was chosen as a representative of a “cross-section of the county’s diverse population” who possesses a “depth of appropriate experience and expertise.”

This appointment follows Joe’s recent appointment to the Buffalo and Erie County Workforce Investment Board. In addition, he is President of the Minority Bar Association of Western New York Foundation and holds positions of prominence with a number of other community and legal industry organizations, including the Defense Research Institute and the American Bar Association. He was recently selected for the 2014 Fellows program by the Leadership Council on Legal Diversity.

Joe is the founder and President of Bunkers in Baghdad, Inc., a nonprofit organization dedicated to supplying new and used golf equipment to active-duty U.S. soldiers and wounded warriors across the world to aid in recreation and rehabilitation from injuries. Since its founding in October 2008, Bunkers in Baghdad has collected and distributed nearly 5 million golf balls, as well as more than 150,000 golf clubs.

Joe is a graduate of the State University of New York at Buffalo (2002) and SUNY Buffalo Law School (2005). He expects to receive his Master’s of Public Administration degree with a concentration on Public and Nonprofit Management from Syracuse University’s Maxwell School of Citizenship and Public Affairs in 2014.

For more information on the Citizens’ Budget Review Commission, visit www.erie.gov.