Will County Farm Bureau questioneer
Hello, I am Steve Weber.
What is the function of the Treasurer’s office?
The function of this office is safeguard the County
deposits, investments (350 million), pay the bills to run this government, mail
tax bills, distribute tax levy to taxing bodies, and deal with the tax sale. We
are the counties banker and collector. We pay all the county employees, bills
to operate, and daily all the offices that take in money come to me to deposit
it and invest it.
How are you qualified?
I am uniquely qualified with my education and work
experience. I am a certified public accountant (CPA) with a focus on finance. I
have 10 years in the banking industry (opened a small community bank) and 23
years as an antifraud professional. I am proud to serve you for 7.5 years as
the Treasurer and was the Auditor (watchdog) prior to this office. I will only
run for finance related offices that I can make more efficient and save you tax
dollars. As a CPA I advise people and small business owners how to save taxes
and operate with less. I helped put in a lot of the accounting in this office
when I was the Auditor and closed the books each month. This helped the staff
keep an open mind when I came in to make positive changes. The days of selecting
a candidate by his name sounds good, should be behind us in elections. Please
vote for qualified leaders.
How can we safeguard our county investments in a volatile
economy?
That's pretty easy. What we do is go out to the market each
month with about $10 million to invest and get the best rates. This helps us to
diversify and avoid all our eggs in 1 basket (I raise 50+ chickens). We look at
limits so we don't have too much with one bank. We review the banks call
reports quarterly and can predict failures and move money away if needed. The
law limits us to safer rated investments and we sell if they are downgraded
like state of Illinois ratings. I like local investments because it helps our
community and we know the players. Our focus in safety 1st and yield 2nd. We
have adopted lots of protective banking practices like positive pay, remote
deposit capture, ach protection to prevent fraud on our accounts. As a good
accountant we reconcile almost 100 accounts each month. Last year on 2.2
billion dollars we were .11 cents off.
How can we make the county’s tax system even more efficient?
We are the model that most Treasurers in Illinois follow and
copy due to our success. We started many great programs such as, the prepayment
program so you pay when and what you want to help the family budget. We started
the free e check program to pay from your bank account. We were the first in
the state to have a smart phone app to pay RE tax. We started the email verses
US postal mail bill system to save money. We started the investment management
in-house to gain over $50 million in interest income to the County. My 1st year
in office we made over five times more interest than budgeted and returned over
$250,000 back to the County. We have outsourced the printing of the bills to
save money and gain a backup plan. We started investing the tax levy so we
could earn more money for the schools and reduce property taxes. My platform is
results, not politics, and I achieve this by adopting best practices in
business. If I advise others the best way, I best do the same. My savings are
over $8 million dollars since elected.
No comments:
Post a Comment