Q&A, Part II: 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 past two issues, The Journal has been 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 first half of the interviews appeared in the previous Oct. 18 issue.

Ritzville Journal: What experience do you have with working with the State Auditor’s office and answering auditing requests/questions?

Janet Manke: I’ve answered questions for the State Auditor’s office the past 12 years. When they come on-site to do our audits, they’ll go to the specific person that does a certain job to get that information. And so the jobs I’ve had they’ve needed the information that I have, so I’ve answered questions for them every year they’re here. I also go to trainings yearly with the state auditors, either they sponsor or somebody else might sponsor [for us to go] to keep up on their latest things and what they’re looking for, that sort of stuff.

Kayla Meise: My current role allows me to have a wide range of duties, which includes banking and investments and foreclosures. I do review the daily banking transactions and I also manage the investment portfolio. I also track and remit bond payments. I file our annual unclaimed property and inventory reports. And because of how involved my current position is with all of those aspects of how we do business in the Treasurer’s office, it allows me to be able to work closely with the County Auditor to give her some detailed information that she uses on the county’s annual financial audit.

Just from working at the bank and even now, I don’t get stressed out when audits come. I see them as an opportunity to learn and grow as an organization. I also think it’s really important to keep an open line of communication between our office and the State Auditor’s office. This will make our audit process smooth, and keep us from encountering any surprises.

RJ: What do you see as a weakness in the Treasurer’s office, and if elected, how would you work to correct it?

JM: Probably right now the weakness would be the organization in the office. Records retention for almost the majority of what we do—tax records and so forth—is six years. So you’ve generated a lot of paper and a lot of work to keep for six years, and it takes up a lot of physical space. The Washington State Archives have three grants that are available for next year that I’ve looked at. And they would help either with digital imaging, technology tools or organizing the file room. Whether I’m the treasurer or not, I’m planning on applying for those grants. And then if we could get digital images, or actual physical records taken to the local archives in Cheney, then that would free up a lot of space. So I think that’s probably the major thing.

KM: I really take pride in the Treasurer’s office, and I feel like our current treasurer has done a great job, she’s been there for over 39 years. We all have a high work ethic there, and we all have strong moral principles. As a team, we all take pride in our work and we’ve always been really good at working together. I wouldn’t really consider it a weakness, but a place we can make improvement is to really just streamline more of our processes. I think there’s a lot of things that we’re doing manually that we could do more efficiently and effectively. And it’s just the way that they’ve been done for a long time, and that’s ok because there’s a reason for that. But we really do need to streamline our processes and improve our communication with the other departments.

RJ: What community project or organizations have you been involved with? How to you plan to serve all of the communities located in Adams County?

JM: Currently, I’m the vice president of the Wheatland Communities Fair. I’m also their royalties coordinator and a barn superintendent. I have volunteered for 22 years with the Ritzville Distinguished Young Woman program, I was the co-chair for five years and the technical director for 17 years. I’m currently a 4-H leader, and when we had the Ritzville Blues Fest I worked on that in the financial office for six years and was a gate cashier for two years. I’ve been involved with the Ritzville chapter of Pheasants Forever, I was on their banquet committee for 10 years. I’m the past secretary of the Ritzville Gun Club, and I’ve helped with the float and other projects for the Festivals Association.

There’s ways to serve the community as far as the Treasurer’s office … on a professional level. Again, you have your website. You can have educational meetings and sessions with junior taxing districts. I’ve thought of doing a tax payment dropbox in a secure area in different towns to make it convenient. Maybe schedule times in other communities where you could take your laptop with you if they have tax questions, if they don’t have a way to get to the office to ask us. If we had what we needed there, we could help them on a periodic basis.

KM: Right now I am a board member on the East Adams County Library District. My previous volunteer opportunities include serving on the East Adams County Healthcare Foundation as the treasurer, I was the Relay For Life event coordinator, I’ve been a parent representative at the Little Learners Christian Preschool, I’ve also been a board member for the Ritzville Area Chamber of Commerce. I’ve also helped plant trees for the Ritzville Tree Board. I have volunteered at the Wheatland Communities Fair, the Ritzville Blues Fest and the Western Art Show.

As a family, we participate in Little Guy Wrestling, t-ball, Frontier Girls, Boy Scouts and flag football right now. As much as we can we want to involve our kids in the community, because we want to lead them by example. If elected, I want to use that position as a platform to promote community event and empower other people to be leaders and the way I plan to do that is by setting an example and speaking to people about it.

RJ: What is the largest issue facing the candidate who is elected to this position, and how would you address it?

JM: For myself, I think it would be building new relationships on a new level with departments and other elected officials, and just learning more about the job. We’ve all been in the office and we know what the treasurer does, but actually sitting in that seat and doing it yourself.

KM: It’s not really a political office, it’s more of a mechanical position of the county, so it would just be streamlining processes.

RJ: What have you enjoyed most about this campaign, and what has been the most challenging aspect?

JM: Probably meeting people that I haven’t met before. I didn’t really have an avenue to meet them, so I’ve met a lot of people, some in Ritzville and more in surrounding towns that I may not have talked to before. I think the length of time of the campaign trying to keep your momentum going. There’s a lot of things I find challenging, but that is definitely one of them.

KM: When I started my campaign, I’ve been fortunate enough to have advice given to me and words of encouragement from people that I’ve known. One thing that I started doing is reaching out to people all over Adams County, specifically people who have run for office in the past, and I wanted to talk to people who won their race, but I also wanted to talk to people who lost their campaign, because even when you lose there’s a lot you can learn. What’s really touched me is their willingness to give me information and give me advice.

I don’t really know if there’s a challenging aspect, if I had to say it’s just been trying to talk to as many people as I can and getting people to vote. People need to vote, it’s their civic duty.