For the first time since the Employee of the Quarter award was incepted in 1994, Tax Collector Ken Burton Jr. announced that two employees were the recipients of the honor. Another unusual aspect is that they both are part-time employees of the Manatee County Tax Collector's office.

Cassandra Vasquez and Kristine Reeves have been named as co-Employees of the Quarter, First Quarter, 2010. Both serve in the Delinquent Collections Department; "Cassie" since December 2006, and "Kris" since October 2007. They work together as a team on the Tourist Development Tax (TDT) program.

"One of Cassie and Kris's daily tasks is searching the web for accounts not currently registered or possibly under reporting with us," said Burton. "Due to their diligence we are adding new TDT accounts on a weekly basis. This is very important to Manatee County and the Tourist Development Board to whom the funds are disbursed. We are very proud of the incredible job they do."

"Cassie and Kris are our first line of defense when working with our property managers," said Director of Delinquent Collections Ray Williams. "They help ensure that their accounts in our online system match their own reports. This helps our property managers comply with requests for individual filing of properties and allows them to more easily navigate through the system. They also conduct site visits to help ‘walk' them through the system.

Each year our software provider provides a list of ‘need to change' items within the system. This compilation is based on requests of systems changes and shared with all participating Counties. Cassie and Kris review the list and indicate whether any items affect Manatee County; they either add comments to the requested changes or add new items based on their experience.

The Delinquent Collections Department recently began to periodically review inactivated accounts. Cassie and Kris randomly checked some accounts only to find some could have been closed because they were either duplicate accounts or the property had been sold. They then conducted a very tedious process of checking our online program to ensure there was no more than one account assigned to the property for a particular owner, then reviewed the property appraiser's tax roll to ensure that the property had not been sold. If sold or duplicate, Cassie and Kris then closed the account, noting in the system why the account was closed. When this project started the report was almost 200 pages. The report is now less than 70 pages and they continue to whittle it away.

Another project Cassie and Kris undertook last year was to ensure that ALL current (active) accounts were current with their information and that there were no missing or empty fields. A program was created that identifies accounts with missing fields – i.e., phone number, mailing address, FEI numbers, etc. They systematically reviewed the report and have now updated the missing fields that were revealed.

These are just the more major accomplishments, but of course, there is also the normal day-to-day grind of processing payments, making/answering phone calls, opening new accounts, following up on accounts as they come through on the tipline," said Williams. "They may be part-time but they give 110 per cent the whole time they are here."

Core Values exhibited: Customer Focus, Teamwork, Future Focus, Innovation, Excellence and Accountability. They each will receive a certificate of appreciation, share a reserved parking space, have their name engraved on the office trophy and receive a gift certificate from Demetrio's Pizza House on Cortez Road. They also will be listed in Employees of the Quarter located on the office website www.taxcollector.com.

The mission of the Manatee County Tax Collector’s Office is to perform our duties with integrity, focusing on innovation and serving with excellence.