I am a big supporter of continuous learning. Skills get rusty, leadership styles evolve, and workplace culture is dynamic. I enthusiastically support all public officials completing leadership, management and workplace culture training.

The Auditor’s responsibilities are serious and multi-faceted, and will require my full attention in order to meet the list of outcomes I intend to deliver. I will be a full time County Auditor.

I will make the Auditor’s website the repository of all budget and performance-against-budget data, including a dashboard of Key Performance Indicators.

Every penny counts. We deserve to know they are not at risk.

Leadership is the decisive factor in employee morale, trust-building, retention, and organizational effectiveness. I will use my leadership skills to ensure people feel valued, supported, and are given opportunities to grow.

I will guide the process of setting goals and priorities for services by collaborating with all departments and offices. I am familiar with the county’s new Workday software, which will assist me in the process of reviewing inputs real time.

Voter information is critical to making informed decisions. Our democracy depends on it. This is why I commit to ensuring that each election has a voter’s guide, and that every voter receives one by mail.

The project is behind schedule and at risk of failing. This is a potential $4million loss for the County. I would ask for help, and study the implementation by other counties to learn from them. I am familiar with Workday software. Not all modules need to be live at once. I would focus on prioritizing bimonthly payroll.

We are facing threats to the election process in our country, in our state, and in our county.

I will refuse and report any request for voter information that is not authorized by the Secretary of State’s office.

The reporting process is described in detail in the Revised Code of Washington, which I have studied. I will follow the code to conduct the election and Chair the Canvassing Board while combining clarity, timeliness, transparency and communication. Livestreaming the vote count is one way to keep people informed in real time.

Managing the budget in a time of inflationary expenses and flat or declining sales tax revenue. Freezing headcount and cutting expenses across the board are not optimal solutions. County employees fill critical roles. A better option is to reprioritize services and conduct a detailed review of expenses to remove unnecessary spending.

Success will be earning the trust of the Commissioners based on delivering the timely, detailed data they need to make informed decisions. That level of trust establishes the strategic role of providing insight and guidance.

Running for the Auditor position is a very current example. I have never run for office, and had no intention of running a year ago. Changing one’s mind occurs when your mental model of the situation, or your assumptions about it are challenged or proven wrong. In this case, my model was one of retirement from a career of leadership and finance. After listening to the Commissioners’ meetings, I came to understand that my experience and skillset were not only needed, but the perfect fit for the elected position of County Auditor. This led me to exploring the possibility – meeting with other electeds and county staff. Once I started digging into the role and current challenges, I realized not only that there was some urgency, but also that I could and should offer myself as a candidate. So here I am!

My approach is to have a clear vision of the long term outcome, and then make short term steps to reach that goal. This is a skill set that I developed during my career as a program and project manager. There is an endpoint – the launch of a new product or service for example – and there is a timeline to get it done. My role as leader is to work backward from the goal, to identify what tasks are needed, in what sequence, to get the job done. Then I consider the skills of the team and assign the work to be done to the best person. Having a clear vision of where you are going in the long term enables you to determine how you’re going to get there in the short term. 

Actually there are two: 

I defend the transition by the County to a new data management and financial reporting system known as Workday. The transition is underway, and as is the case with all major changes, there is fear, uncertainty and risk associated with it. I am familiar with Workday. It has the potential to be a game changer for the Auditor’s office – by moving it from a transactional environment of generating reports, to a strategic environment. I will utilize the software to gain insight from the data collected, and from that insight, make recommendations to the Commissioners for the upcoming quarter and year. 

I will also defend the anonymity of our election process. There have been several reports in the news recently about pressure on elections officers to release voter data to the Federal government. I will back up the Secretary of State and the law in refusing to bend to this pressure.

I set out a series of priorities in my decision to run for office. They are:

- to rebuild trust with the Commissioners and peers

- to ensure timely and detailed reporting of expenses against the budget

- to improve customer service 

- to leverage technology 

- and to protect our elections

I will measure success by the progress I’ve made toward those goals. The most important among these is protecting the integrity of our elections. We must have an Auditor who is ethically unassailable, who will push back against any attempt to interfere with the election process – by demanding voter data, stoking fear through disinformation, or interfering with the mail-in ballot process. We need to have contingency plans to handle any one of these attempts. Voting is our constitutional right, and it’s what informs our democracy. As I like to say, every penny counts, every record counts and every vote counts.