As a result of the 2006 Charter Amendments, the county's revenue recovery functions were transferred to the comptroller's office. Since then our office has instituted new methods to enhance the collection of money due the county.

For example, in December of 2010, my office's Revenue Recovery Unit filed tax warrants against owners and operators of hotels in Erie County that failed to remit over $53,000 in hotel taxes that they previously collected from their customers. These are not the hotel owners' business taxes, but taxes they collected from their patrons and which they are required to remit to the County. The owners are not entitled to keep this tax revenue – it is not revenue derived from hotel room rental charges but instead taxes – it belongs to the taxpayers of Erie County and my collections professionals will enforce the law to see that the people's money is returned.

Additionally, in August of 2009, my office's Revenue Recovery Unit collected almost $1,500,000 in delinquent payments from the City of Buffalo that other county departments were not collecting.

Also, through the hard work of my staff working with the Department of Probation staff, the 2009 average monthly collection is $47,062 for probationer supervision fees, or a 233% increase from the average monthly collections in 2006, the year prior to the Comptroller's assumption of collection responsibilities.

The members of my Revenue Recovery staff are trained collection professionals, with decades of private sector experience between them, and now that experience is being put to use for the taxpayers of Erie County.