Legislature Office Not Taking On New Duties

The County Legislature's office staff won't be taking on new duties.

The Audit and Control Committee had in recent months been looking at different scenarios for the legislature clerk's office as well as for the legislature itself in 2012.

One of those ideas, however, won't be happening.

Legislator Chuck Nazzaro, D-Jamestown, had said the committee was looking at the possibility of the legislative office taking over the accounting and management of the occupancy tax.

According to county Finance Director Darin Schulz, though that discussion did take place, there was a misunderstanding of some internal workings. Now that those misunderstandings have been cleared up about the departments involved, Schulz said that the Finance Department will continue to do the accounting for and management of the collection of occupancy taxes.

The county's 5 percent bed tax is really two taxes, a 2 percent and a 3 percent, charged by hotels, motels and inns. Technically, the tax is supposed to be charged by any lodging where a person pays rent for less than 30 days at a time.

As explained by Nazzaro, the interest in moving the duty to the legislature office was to maybe give it more attention so that more occupancy tax could be collected from lodgings other than hotels and motels.

An editorial on the topic by The Post-Journal can be read here.

The Observer recently ran the initial story about the situation. That story can be read by clicking here.