Mark Poloncarz is Erie County's Comptroller. Mark is Erie County’s eleventh (11th) comptroller and only the fifth (5th) elected comptroller since the office was made elective in 1961.

Mark was born on November 7, 1967 to Charles and Janice Poloncarz, each now retired as a steelworker and nurse from Bethlehem Steel Corp. and Mercy Hospital, respectively. The eldest of three sons, Mark grew up with his parents and younger brothers Robb and Kevin in the blue-collar steel town of Lackawanna, New York. Mark graduated as a National Honor Society Member and Regents scholar from Lackawanna Senior High School in 1985 and received a Bachelor of Arts Degree from the State University of New York at Buffalo in 1989.

During and after college Mark worked in the private sector for Sears, Roebuck & Co. for nine years in a number of positions, but then decided to go back to school to obtain his law degree, which he did when he graduated from the University of Toledo College of Law in 1997. During his final year of law school Mark won the University of Toledo’s moot court competition and received the prestigious “Barrister” award honoring his accomplishment.

Before his election as Erie County's Comptroller, and after passing the New York State Bar exam on his first attempt, Mark practiced corporate/business and finance law in Buffalo, New York and was last associated with the firm of Kavinoky Cook LLP. His legal practice included representing businesses, both large and small, in all aspects of their corporate daily life, including complicated public and private financing transactions, as well as local quasi-governmental authorities during complex public and private mixed finance transactions that often involve local, state and federal government entities.

Active in his community, Mark has served on numerous not-for-profit corporate boards as both a director and an officer and has a solid history of guiding financial distressed institutions to solvency.

For example, as the former President of the South Park Golf Club, Mark saved the club from certain dissolution after it ran deficit budgets for many years under previous administrations by instituting austerity budgets and other cost control measures. The Club is now a self-sufficient, financially secure organization.

As Treasurer of the New Group at the Albright-Knox Art Gallery, Mark instituted budgetary reforms and helped guide the New Group through difficult financial times such that the New Group is now a self-sufficient, financially solid cultural organization.

In addition to volunteering for local organizations, Mark is the former Western New York Coordinator for the John Kerry for President Campaign and the founder of the Western New York Coalition for Progress, a progressive think tank organization dedicated to making western New York a better place to live, work and raise a family.

Mark resides in the City of Buffalo with his wife Elizabeth.

• President: 2005.

• Second Vice President: 2003 - 2004.

• Treasurer: 2002 - 2004.

• President, 2001- 2004, 2007.
• Tournament Chairman, 1999 - 2001.
• Golf Chairman, 1992 - 1994.

• Buffalo Olmsted Parks Conservancy.


• 2002 Save Our Sabres Volunteer Campaign.