By Pat Jenkins The Dispatch Eatonville is poised to go forward without an elected treasurer to help keep track of the town's finances. The Town Council could vote March 14 to combine the treasurer's duties with the clerk's, creating a single non-elected position. Under a proposal that has formally been before the council since Feb. 22, a clerk-treasurer would be appointed by Mayor Mike Schaub, effective June 14. State law requires at least a three-month wait before the consolidated position becomes official. Elected treasurers once were common among small towns and cities, but that has changed over the years. Eatonville is the only one left, and even there the position is vacant since the resignation of Lori Smith. The departure of Smith, who was elected last November, resurrected a discussion about how the treasurer's job should be structured. In 2011, then-mayor Ray Harper proposed eliminating the treasurer position, which is considered part-time, and its $11,000-a-year salary and giving the treasurer's duties to the clerk. The council eventually decided to keep the treasurer as a separately elected official to help handle Eatonville's money. Schaub was the treasurer for six years until being elected mayor in 2013. He was an advocate for preserving the treasurer position as part of a checks-and-balances system for confirming expenditures and monitoring fund transfers and accounts. But he now favors a clerk-treasurer combo. "The statutory duties of the treasurer have be reduced to a minimal level just from the changing environment of government," Schaub said. He noted that under current state law and town regulations, "only a couple" duties relate to an elected treasurer. The role of a town clerk has similar duties to a treasurer. For Eatonville, the clerk already maintains records of town revenue and expenses. Because the jobs of clerk and treasurer have similar responsibilities, they should be combined, according to the council's Finance Committee in its recommendation to the full council. After Schaub became mayor, Eatonville was without a treasurer for three months until Smith was appointed by the council just before a deadline for picking one. If the deadline had been missed, the duty of making a choice would have been given to Pierce County, as required by state law.
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