KINGSTON – Ulster County Comptroller Elliott Auerbach is responsible for how the county spends its money, and Wednesday he told members of the Ulster County Chamber of Commerce how government is a responsible partner with the private sector.

“What we tried to do is demystify the office of comptroller, and explain to them how we do things,” he said. “And just like them, we feel government should be run and be accountable as they do in their businesses every day.”

Like businesses, government provides goods and services. Unlike the private sector; however, there is no competition to provide a better product. Yet there is trust in government to do so.

“We’re not the guard dog for the executive or the lap dog for the legislature; we are the people’s independent watchdog of Ulster County government and we have unfettered access to any and all information to carry out our charge,” he told business people at the Kingston breakfast.

Ulster County government works with businesses that provide goods and services to taxpayers, and those businesses must be paid. And it’s not always so easy to submit a bill and then get paid on a timely and preferable schedule.

“The biggest thing we hear from businesses is the slow payment time,” said Auerbach.

 So Auerbach’s office has created a system to help provide those payments and increase government’s efficiency.

“We’ve created a vendor efficiency payment report to track that. By tracking that, we can see where the gaps are. And by seeing where the gaps are, we can speed the process along.”

Ulster County also provides funding for non-profits, and Auerbach said government, being the leading non-profit, shares lessons about survival and accountability by training them about the process of obtaining funding.

“With the non-profits it’s about making them better stewards with their money,” he said. “One thing I see with non-profits is that they don’t see how the process works. And by not knowing how it works, it frustrates them.”