Milene Henley has announced her intent to seek re-election as San Juan County Auditor.
Auditor is a county-wide position with responsibilities for financial reporting, election administration, vehicle and vessel licensing, and recording land and other documents within the county.
Henley was elected to her first term as Auditor in November of 2006. She brought to the job degrees from Harvard and Stanford and a lifetime of experience in private sector business and finance.
During her first term she has led her department in implementing and expanding the use of the County’s new financial management system, Eden. She also sourced, selected and implemented a new recording system and a new dog license system. The dog license system has helped local animal protection societies to return missing dogs to their homes by giving them online access to the licensing database, including pictures of the missing pooches.
In 2009, purchasing for the county was centralized in the Auditor’s Office, saving the county tens of thousands of dollars annually. Other accomplishments of Henley’s first term include updating the County Travel Policy and the County Fixed Assets Accounting Policy; bringing the County into greater compliance with IRS regulations; and, as surplus property agent for the County, encouraging the re-use of surplus personal property throughout the County.
In April of 2009, Henley delivered the bad news that County revenues were running significantly below budget, and recommended a $1 million reduction in the County budget. Along with County Administrator Pete Rose, she was instrumental in effecting the budget reductions which followed. She was also instrumental in the adoption, in 2009, of the County’s first-ever reserves policy.
In addition to serving as County Auditor, Henley serves on the Local Government Advisory Committee of the State Auditor’s Office. She also serves as Northwest Regional Representative to the Executive Board of the Washington State Association of County Auditors (WSACA), and as the WSACA Finance Chair.
This speaks nothing to elections which she is ultimately responsible for and has been instrumental in eroding the rights of citizens to a fair and private election through her endorsement and promotion of an untested system that tracks individual voters’ ballots with unique bar codes on every ballot that can be used to identify how anyone votes. I am sorry, but I cannot support anyone whose vision can be so easily blurred by the shiny red lights of a bar code scanner.
Allan Rosato
Orcas