Donna Kurtz: 2022 candidate for McHenry County Treasurer

Bio

Party: Republican

Office sought: McHenry County Treasurer

City: Crystal Lake

Age: 63

Occupation: IT Consultant

Previous offices held: McHenry College Board of Trustees (5 years) - Board Member and McHenry County Board Member - District 2 (8 years)

Q&A

Q: If you are an incumbent, describe your main contributions. Tell us of any important initiatives you've led. If you are a challenger, what would you bring to the board and what would your priority be?

A: I am honored to be endorsed by the current McHenry County Treasurer, Glenda L. Miller, who announced she will retire at the end of her term in November 2022. Glenda publicly stated her endorsement is based on my performance as a County Board member for eight years. She knows that I have the knowledge and management skills, to serve as Treasurer on Day One. This includes my deep commitment to protect the financial resources of McHenry County and ensure that the Treasurer's Office maintains its current standards of excellence. As Treasurer my focus will be in these areas:

1. Provide outreach efforts regarding tax reduction eligibility.

2. Protect McHenry County's investments while seeking the maximum return to help keep property taxes down.

3. Streamline the Treasurer's Office to control costs.

My past experience as a Licensed Financial Advisor, Corporate Manager, IT Consultant, Small Business Owner, Auditor, and MBA makes me uniquely qualified to serve as County Treasurer.

Q: Is there a particular issue that motivates you?

A: One of the main roles of the McHenry County Treasurer is to collect property taxes from property owners within the County. A key priority for me is to streamline and automate tax payment so taxpayers can reliably pay their taxes after a one-time set-up is made. This approach will also improve accuracy and minimize errors; as well as eliminate duplicate payments and refunds. By streamlining and simplifying the tax payment process the Treasurer's Office will also gain improvements in reporting, data retrieval, and communications. Overall, introducing tax payment automation will complement (NOT replace) the current options that taxpayers have to pay their taxes, while promoting the means for improved cashflow from tax collection and allowing for overhead cost reduction. This underscores my approach to apply basic common-sense, best practices, risk management, and technology improvement to deliver a fiscally conservative approach in managing our precious tax dollars.

Q: The treasurer's office has a relatively low-profile. How would you improve the visibility and/or make residents more aware of what you do?

A: The need for outreach by the Treasurer's Office continues to expand as social media channels that our citizens rely on for news and information has broadened, as well as the need to provide in-person programming. My approach in conducting outreach will be to build a communications plan that would be based on providing both scheduled and ad hoc communications and programming regarding the Treasurer's functions which includes tax collection, tax exception / reduction programs, and tax sales - as well as other pertinent areas of concern. This communications and programming focus will both provide valuable information that will both educate our community and provide for critical two-way dialogue between the Treasurer's Office and the citizens of McHenry County.

Q: How do you assess the success of the treasurer's office?

A: Currently the Treasurer's Office does an excellent job reporting on individual investments and associated returns, as well as fund balance and related information as managed by the Treasurer. I will build on this tradition of transparency by focusing on performance metrics that will focus on Tax Rate Collection, Tax Exception Program Recipients, and Investment Returns. By gathering and analyzing this data, and potentially other data, we can better anticipate projected cashflows for the County, as well as identifying where improvement opportunities may exist. In addition, I expect that the additional communications outreach that I discussed above will provide a communications channel to assess customer satisfaction in how our office is addressing questions and concerns, as well as processing payments, etc. in the years to come.

Q: What do you say to residents who say their taxes are too high?

A: Throughout my campaign taxpayers have lamented and complained about their high taxes. Of course, as a taxpayer myself I agree with their concerns and then explain that while the Treasurer's Office does not set the tax rate (elected boards for local government units do this), the Treasurer does manage programs to help reduce taxes for those in need. As a result, I have used this opportunity to let our McHenry County taxpayers know of tax savings they may be entitled to receive. These programs include the Homestead Exemption, Veterans Disability, Senior Citizen Homestead Reduction, Senior Citizen Assessment Freeze Exemption, Senior Citizen Real Estate Tax Deferral, Home Improvement Exemption, and other Disability and Veteran's Exemptions. Spending the time to provide information that can help taxpayers or loved ones in need makes people more inclined to want to stay in McHenry County because they are served by people in their County Government who truly care about them.