Q&A: Adams County Treasurer candidates Janet Manke and Kayla Meise

The Ritzville Adams County Journal conducted interviews with the two candidates running for the Adams County Treasurer position, Janet Manke and Kayla Meise. Over the next two issues, The Journal will be sharing what the candidates said during these separate interviews as the Nov. 6 general election nears.

Manke, who prefers the Republican Party, is the operations supervisor in the Adams County Treasurer’s Office. Meise, who also prefers the Republican Party, is the investment and foreclosure deputy in the Adams County Treasurer’s Office.

Both candidates were asked the same questions in their separate interviews. The following transcript has been edited lightly for clarity. The second half of the interviews will appear in the following Oct. 25 issue.

Ritzville Journal: How does your experience qualify you for the role of Adams County Treasurer?

Janet Manke: Well, what qualifies me is that I’ve been working in the Treasurer’s office for 13 years and that I’ve done all of the jobs. The Treasurer’s office is receiving and accounting for the revenue that comes in. We’re the collector of property taxes, we disburse funds to junior taxing districts and we’re the cash and debt management office for the county. So for 13 years I’ve had experience in the Treasurer’s office, doing all of these different things and working in the offices at previous jobs, as well.

Kayla Meise: I have experience in finance in the public and private sector. Before I moved to Ritzville I worked for a collection agency for awhile, and then after that I started on at Sterling Bank as a part-time teller. After that it eventually turned into Umpqua Bank and I was a personal banker. I worked on opening new accounts, training new tellers, I did some lending, I did the monthly branch audit.

And then after that I saw an opportunity to work in the Treasurer’s office and work in an environment that was a little bit more challenging and where I felt like I could serve my community in a larger capacity. Now the job that I do—investments and foreclosures—I have a wide variety of responsibilities and duties: calculating investments, providing information for the county’s financial audit, providing information for the county’s revenue projections each year, and then also doing collections, which is a large part of what the Treasurer’s office does, collecting taxes. I think all of those experiences have given me a good perspective on how to accomplish certain tasks and see opportunities for improvement.

RJ: If elected, what steps will you take to improve communications between Adams County department heads, as well as junior taxing districts?

JM: I don’t think there’s anything one person can do, in regards to the Adams County department heads. Everybody has to make the effort to communicate with each other and make the conscious effort to do that every day. We’re all working for the common goal to have a successful county. As far as junior taxing districts and other things like that, I think we communicate very well with them. There’s always additional things you can do on the website and make it convenient, things they can look up at their own convenience without maybe having to call and ask.

KM: In order to improve communications with department heads and elected officials, I’d like to set up regular one-on-one meetings with them. One of the areas that we need to improve on which involves communication is all being on the same page when certain types of transactions happen for the public, like if someone wants to purchase a mobile home or move a mobile home from another county. The transaction involves Building & Planning, the Assessor’s office, the Treasurer’s office and the Auditor’s office. And so sometimes people are sent to all of these different departments, and they’re kind of on, not a wild goose chase, but in essence [they are.]

And then setting up manuals between the other departments, like procedures that we’re all going to follow with the responsibilities of each department, which I think is a part of having good communication, just knowing that everyone is on the same page.

Right now my current position with investments, I communicate on a monthly basis with the different business managers of the school districts to go over investments, so we have a pretty clear line of communication on the investment aspect. But as Treasurer I would like to set up an annual meeting with them to go over certain changes and expectations that we have of junior taxing districts and that they should have of the Treasurer’s office. It’s something that we could coordinate with other department heads and elected officials so that we could all have something to speak about, like the Auditor and the Assessor. Just educating them on levies, how taxes are collected and how they’re disbursed back to them.

RJ: Why have you decided to run for Adams County Treasurer this year? What traits do you possess that make you an ideal candidate for the position?

JM: I think it was just a natural progression for me. I started in the office at an entry-level position and moved up the ladder. I’m a supervisor, and I’ve been one for seven years. I help with the hiring, I do the training and the supervising of the employees in the office now, so that’s just sort of a natural progression for me to move to the next level.

As far as what traits I possess, I think I’m level-headed, mature and generally a very patient person. I think I’m a good communicator and team player.

KM: I decided to run for Adams County Treasurer because I, and it sounds corny, but I do have a passion for public service. My husband and I were both born and raised here, and I’ve just always been supported by members of the community 110% and they’ve always believed in me. And I feel that one of the most patriotic things you can do is to serve your community in the governmental aspect.

I see opportunities for improvement and I have really good work ethic, and I believe the Treasurer’s office is the best office in the county. We have a lot of responsibilities and I feel like it’s a challenge that my previous work experience has prepared me for. I like solving problems, I like organizing things, I like doing reports, I like working on the audit. It interests me and I really do want to serve my community as best as I can.

Traits that I possess are strong management and interpersonal skills. I have good communication, I think outside the box, I have a fresh pair of eyes. I’ve been in the Treasurer’s office for awhile and I do have a lot of experience in finances but I haven’t been there so long that I can’t see opportunities for improvement. I know things have been done a certain way for a long time, and there are reasons for that and there are RCW’s for the way things have to be done, but I’d like to reach out to other elected officials and other county treasurers and use resources like the Association of County Treasurers and stuff like that to do better.

RJ: If elected, what changes would you make to the Treasurer’s office?

JM: I would work toward the inclusion of updated electronic record keeping to replace some of the manual procedures that we currently do. Again, adding information to the treasurer’s page on the county website. With compared to other counties, there’s a lot of things we could add on there, for just informational purposes or actual interactive things, like letting them make requests and things like that. I would update some procedures and job descriptions and kind of with that comes added employee training and cross-training in the office.

KM: There are things that I would like to stay the same, because they’ve been done that way for a reason and I don’t want to undo work that’s been done by treasurers before us. But I really do think that we need to streamline a lot of our day-to-day processes, and then ones that involve the work of other departments.

A common-sense solution to one of our streamlining issues is I’d like to set up the capability for each desk that receives tax payments at to accept credit cards. Right now we accept credit cards on the phone and online, but we’re not doing it in the office, and we have to tell people to go to the ATM or come back and bring a check, and it’s just—we’re in the 21st century, it’d be nice to do that.

My biggest goal is to make doing business in the Treasurer’s office easier for the public. I’d like to offer electronic tax statements to people that want them, but then also keep the option to receive paper statements for people that prefer them. I’d like to upload our most commonly used forms on our website. It doesn’t cost us any extra money. So they’re not big changes, they’re little changes that do add up. And one of the other things that I wanted to change was staying open for extended hours during peak tax season to be more available to the public.

RJ: What would your top priorities be, and why, if you were elected?

JM: The top priorities would be organizing and restructuring the office. Kind of going along with that would be updating the software that interfaces with the Auditor’s office. For financial things and for real estate excise there’s things that we do in conjunction with each other, and we share the information. But if we were interfaced with each other we wouldn’t have to do the manual spreadsheets and processes, walking down the hall and taking them things. We could just go ‘yeah, here it is right here.’ So I think the software and the interfaces would be important for organizing. And then probably looking for a way to improve taxpayer’s conveniences, and that would be the website and things like that.

KM: My top priorities would be to increase efficiency while maintaining accuracy, provide a superior level of customer service to the public, and to increase our public and interdepartmental communication. For the public I’d like to publish a newsletter regularly online to educate them on where their tax dollars are going, how investments are doing, when foreclosure sales will be and posting listings online so it’s a little easier for people to do their research and hopefully be interested in purchasing those properties and we can get them back on the tax rolls.