Treasurer said Warren County's occupancy-tax collections rose sharply in June after a previously delinquent hotel-resort paid several years of back taxes and associated interest and penalties. "In June, you'll see overall, we're up 20%," the Treasurer told the Occupancy Tax Coordination Committee, adding that hotels, motels and resorts were up "25 percent" and short-term rentals were up "6 percent." The Treasurer said without that annual payment the hotels category would have been down 4% for June and the overall quarter would have been down 7%.

The Treasurer framed the monthly figures while also presenting year-to-date numbers. "From a year to date perspective, we're up 1%," the Treasurer said, noting hotels were essentially flat year-to-date and short-term rentals had risen about 2%. The report also explained timing differences between activity and collections, saying May collections reflect April activity and June collections reflect May activity, which the Treasurer said explained some month-to-month swings.

Why it matters: Collections swings driven by late payments change short-term reporting and complicate trend analysis used for budgeting and grant-match planning. The Treasurer told the committee staff are working to reduce reporting periods and improve compliance to get more timely, consistent revenue recognition.

Staff also updated the committee on a pending procurement for an end-to-end occupancy-tax portal that would register short-term rental hosts, accept returns and process online payments. The Treasurer said the county had solicited references and demonstrations from three options: Deckard, govOS and a vendor related to the county's financial back end (referred to in the meeting as Tyler/New World). "Deckard had phenomenal results when we did our reference checks," the Treasurer said, but added the company's references for a full end-to-end portal were weaker than its identification-and-compliance product. The Treasurer said "govOS has some great references" for an end-to-end portal and that the county is also exploring deeper integration with the New World financial system through the Tyler-related option.

Staff said the county is delaying a final vendor decision to allow more due diligence and reference checking. The Treasurer said pricing discussions had lowered initial offers but that bid comparisons still reflected tradeoffs: Deckard reportedly excelled at identifying and tracking short-term rentals but had weaker end-to-end portal references; the New World/Tyler option promises tighter back-end integration but lacks identification and compliance tooling. Staff provided the committee offered pricing figures from negotiations: a Deckard offer reduced to about $43,075 (figure provided by staff) and a govOS offer reduced to about $62,010 (figure provided by staff); staff said these numbers reflected negotiated reductions from initial quotes.

Separately, committee staff described operational changes to simplify compliance and reporting. The Treasurer said the county will reduce reporting periods (currently five) to two for many filers and will move properties that were reporting annually or quarterly to monthly reporting where applicable to improve real-time revenue recognition. The Treasurer also said county staff are exploring modern web-pay options to accept online payments across departments and may offer the towns shared, lower-cost payment services.

Discussion and next steps: Committee members asked questions but did not take a formal vote on vendor selection. The Treasurer said staff will continue reference checks, confirm integration requirements with the New World accounting back end, and return to the committee with a recommendation once due diligence is complete.

Public-comment notes and platform reporting: During the public-comment portion and later discussion staff reiterated that platform compliance with New York State reporting requirements is still evolving. The Treasurer said platforms such as Airbnb and VRBO have been inconsistent in providing host data and that full automated platform reporting required under New York State law may not be fully operational until the state's September 2025 timeline. "In fact, we are now just getting ready to get our first reporting from VRBO, and they are backpedaling a little bit and telling us that they're only gonna give us certain information without a subpoena," the Treasurer said. Staff urged patience while continuing to pursue direct registration and platform cooperation.