A county auditor’s occupation might not be the most glamorous — but it’s one worth about $52 million in funding, with $12 million of that coming from taxpayer dollars.
A county auditor’s occupation might not be the most glamorous — but it’s one worth about $52 million in funding, with $12 million of that coming from taxpayer dollars.
That’s why Democrat and current Athens City Auditor Kathy Hecht is running for the position against Republican Incumbent Jill Thompson this November.
The auditor is tasked with a hefty weight: serving as the chief fiscal officer for the county, charged with assessing all property tax values in the area, distributing tax dollars to county agencies, holding all financial records and tax rates for personal and private real estate property and tracking all fixed assets, revenue and expenditures within the county while overseeing dozens of departmental budgets.
Thompson is currently paid $70,870, according to Alan Ferguson, finance reporting administrator with the auditor’s office.
Accomplishments in office
Thompson:
Said she has worked to restructure her office structure to be responsive to the way locals were using it most, by making the most relevant information to county residents easily available. She also charged her office with making property records available online in 2006, and making financial records more transparent to residents in general. Thompson added that her office was the first to issue a popular financial report in Southeast Ohio, which is a more user-friendly way to interpret funding and tax dollars year-by-year. She is also leading her office through a software upgrade.
Hecht:
Said she has accomplished several things while in office as city auditor, including making administrators more aware of policies, procedures, IRS regulations and bookkeepings in an effort to make financial reporting easier. She added that she has also worked to upgrade the city’s website by putting purchase order requests online and making it so that citizens can file their withholding taxes online as well. Hecht is proud of her “good working relationship with everybody in the city” and added that she has meetings nearly every week with the finance committee and the Mayor of Athens, Paul Wiehl. She also said that she makes an effort to be present at every Athens City Council meeting, which the auditor before her did not do.
Looking Forward
Thompson:
Said her office “still (has) a long ways to go in terms of increasing accessibility,” but that they’ve come a long way with what they can do, adding that it’s critical to have officials that are responsive and interacting with the public.
“We work with people at the counter and we help folks to be able to navigate through local or city government,” Thompson said. “I just feel like the services that we’ve provided and continue to provide — we will continue to be responsive to our taxpayers as well.”
Hecht:
Said that she would like to see a higher level of communication and cooperation between city and county officials.
“I’d like to make sure that all of the agency directors, elected officials and fiscal officers know what they should and shouldn’t be doing,” Hecht said. “To let other people know what restrictions on different funds — any grant funds that come in have restrictions that all seem different. It can be confusing.”
Hecht said she’d also like to improve dilapidated properties on the fringes of the county, which she suspects are bringing property values down.
Why should Ohio University
students vote for you?
Thompson:
Said she thinks education is incredibly important, and has just received her master’s degree in financial economics. She said that she tries to keep her staff educated and on the cutting edge.
“Students will see that our office is very interactive, and we do that by staying on top of the game all the time.”
Hecht:
Said there is “a need for change here in Athens, and we need someone who pays closer attention to our taxpayer dollars.” She added that students who live off campus are taxpayers by proxy, considering they pay their landlords so they might pay for their property taxes.
“I’d like the students to recognize that we need someone who’s paying attention to those dollars,” she said. “It does affect their lives. In reality your day-to-day life is affected more by local officials.”
@eockerman
eo300813@ohio.edu
