Will County Treasurer Steve Weber answers questions

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.