John D Jackson for County Treasurer 2022

You can listen to the interview with John Jackson on YouTube, from which this is written. "Quotes" are quotes of John Jackson. Italics and "Quotes in italics" are from Reed Sutman, the interviewer. Where context is not provided, unstyled, unquoted text is a summary or paraphrase of John Jackson's words.

In your words, what does the County Treasurer Do?

• Accounts for all monies for budgetary purposes, collections, and distributions
• Collect extensions of taxes from clerk's office & make distributions back to taxing districts
• Funds for all offices in the county's oversight go through the treasurer's office.

Why are you running for Macon County Treasurer?

"To improve the community. To improve the treasurer's office and the county as a whole"

How does your role allow you to improve the community?

• "oversight, spend. incoming and outgoing"
• all money collected for taxes is reconciled in the office
• all money that is in the daily budget for the county comes through the offices
• "so you have transparency of all funding sources for the county"

What are your top three priorities for your next term as County Treasurer

"Continue the automation of the office"

• all electronic records, cleanup of all the historical systems, redundant tasks with paperwork (streamline that), any files that can be saved electronically through state governments (we'll implement those). We'll keep old paper files where state says you have to
• "When I took over, paper was stacked up everywhere"

"Continuation of the cross training of all employees"

• "Where if someone is out, historically you have to wait for someone to come back. [with cross training] the office is more efficient."
• "Overall the continuous improvement of the process"

"Document all state statutes. Make sure that we are operating in a timely and efficient manner. The state mandates certain things are done and we're gonna follow that to a T"

• they have to keep certain paper copies
• there's a vault in the back room for paper
• state statute requires you to put in a request if you want to purge anything (destroy paper copies)
• some records can be deleted automatically after a certain amount of time

Why do you think County Treasurer is a partisan, elected position and how might a Democrat candidate differ in their execution of County Treasurer?

"Historically, regardless of party, there really isn't a job description persay. I think that, if you just follow the guidance of what the state says, you just almost come into work and show up, turn the lights on, and go home. I think that my approach is I'm hands on and I want to change that. I'm hands on with every single process out there. I'll take a payment up there. I process payments. I process all the mail, I wanna know what's going on. I'm the point of contact with anything with the state and the team knows we all delegate everything. Everybody's in the loop. We meet weekly. We discuss anything that's open and ongoing to keep everybody informed."

Reed: "So it's not so much a partisan difference, as it is just the way any individual might conduct the office"

John Jackson: "That would be correct. Yes. That's a perfect statement. I mean as far as a party, it's irrelevant. "

What changes have you made to the County Treasurer's office since you were appointed in 2021?

John says he has automated the processes, cross-trained employees, and has Standard Operating Procedures for every job in the office, both in electronic & written formats.

"If a treasurer were to follow me, they could walk in with a booklet on how to run the office. Everything is documented. Total transparency. If anyone wanted to see it, we've got it all."

Reed: Before you, was there less transparency?

John Jackson: "It was all compartmentalized. Everyone stayed in their own lane. You had assigned roles and you didn't step out of those roles." He added that if someone came in with a special need, they might have had to wait until the right person came back into the office.

"My background [is] continuous improvement. I'm a Lean Six Sigma Black Belt practitioner. I find problems. I solve problems. I'm a project manager, so these were elementary things in my toolbox."

Note: Lean Six Sigma is a methodology for business and project management. Purdue says "Lean Six Sigma (LSS) provides an excellent framework for creating efficiencies throughout an organization, combining the defect prevention focus of Six Sigma with the emphasis on waste reduction and process streamlining offered by Lean thinking." LSS Black Belt is a particular certification.

What role, if any, do you play in the County's legislative process?

"As the treasurer, very little." You have; you'll handle the trustee for properties where taxes are delinquent, for tax sales, for abandoned properties - you have oversight for that, but beyond anything for that, you wouldn't.

Reed: Do you bring any resolutions to the County Board?
John says he brings delinquent tax sales monthly, and brings budget items. He says if a department needs detailed spend analytics or any budget item, John will provide that. He says account balances are reconciled daily.

Reed: Do you do any political advocacy for certain policies or to increase your budget or anything like that?

• Just the budget in this office.
• But I would help any dept if they needed to pull data for their budget, I would assist them

History and Ambitions

Reed: I understand you were elected to the Macon County Board in 2014, became the finance committee chair in 2018, and vice chair of the Board in 2020. Then in 2021, you were nominated and appointed by the County Board to be the County Treasurer, replacing Ed Yoder who retired that year. And you worked for ADM from 2007 until 2021, a few weeks into your Treasurer position. Is this all accurate?

John: "That's correct."

Did your work with ADM prepare you for being the County Treasurer? In what ways?

"The last role I had at ADM, I was over global real estate, so I had moved half a million dollars in property in three years. And prior to that, I worked many years in Continuous Improvement Globally, and Mergers & Acquisitions, Sale of Assets, diggin into systems, global systems to interact with AP (Accounts Payable), AR (Accounts Receivable) globally into United States."

"I traded commodities for several years. I managed a portfolio for, I guess you could call it, co-products for the soy-bean side. When I was in the real estate, I sat in the global security, under their umbrella so I had reach globally with the company." He also managed employees at that time. He was in control of many of the process type things like he does here.

He did the continous improvement. "I worked all over the United States, South America, and Europe to make things more efficient, more effective in the operations."

What formal education do you have to qualify you for Treasurer?

He says he has a Bachelor's Degree in Management, is a Lean Six Sigma Black Belt, mentioned statistics and business continuity.

"[Business Continuity] was the last training I had in 2020 or '21. Business Continuity is just a plan. It's a recovery plan. Finding the weak links in a city, a county, a state, a government, or a business and putting stop-gaps in place to [mumbling] in the event of a catastrophy"

What motivated you to run for County Board in 2014?

"The interest in the community. The possibility to affect it in a positive manager."

Reed: Were there some specific things you wanted to see changed?

"You know that's interesting because I don't think from the County Board side until you get in you don't know, you don't really understand, I think you (Reed) come to enough meetings ... it's hard to explain, I'm trying to think about it ... What you see isn't what you get. You think you can make change, but then politics comes into play and it can go to where you can't get a lot done. Hence the reason I think that if they can reduce the board this next time in November, December 1st, it should help things. It's just less noise, less moving pieces to try to put together. Everybody has good intentions on the board and I think it's more work than people realize. It's not just showing up, looking at an agenda, and ... you've gotta dig in. You've (Reed) seen some of the full packets can be big and you've really gotta dig in if you want to make a good change."

Note: John is referring to the redistricting in 2021

Reed: Were there any specific changes you wanted to implement and you were not able to get through during your time on the County Board?

"Oh yeah, there's always things. I can't name 'em, but there's always something you wish you could do, yaknow. That's what the political system of the United States actually is phenomenal if you look all of it through. You just. You represent your districts and thats your role. And a lot of times, you're like minded in those decisions you try to bring for change."

What motivated you to run again in 2018?

"I would say the same thing. You get to where you understand it and you can navigate and you're a better board member."

What are your future plans for politics? Do you plan to run again if you lose this election? Do you plan to run for other offices in the future? State offices?

"I would say not. I'd say for the political aspirations, this is as high as it gets. I'm gonna be honest, I wouldn't call the role political. I mean it's a job. You need somebody that cares and wants to come in and do the job right and do the county right."

Do you find the election process and campaigning, does that distract you at all from your duties as treasurer?

"No it does not"

Specific Questions

How does the $90,000 Treasurer salary compare to your salary at ADM?

"Much reduced." "I don't want to [share specifics]."

Do you expect a salary increase if elected this year?

"I don't expect anything. It's not the money that drives me."

Ed Yoder was criticized for several issues during his last year or so as Treasurer.

One criticism was only sending property tax distributions three times per year. In your tenure, have distributions been sent every 30 days as recommended by state law?

"Yes, they have."

"There has not [been any hiccups]. I pulled some data. Mr. Yoder's last year for distributions was half of what we made for first distribution last year and this year. So we doubled the distribution. His last distribution would have been 2020, that was around 45 million dollars. We made a distribution in 2021 around 90 million dollars. And we made a distribution on the 15th of July of 88 million dollars, this year."

Reed: Why would your distributions be larger?

John: "Reconciliation. Once we got the payments, we processed, we got them in the bank. They were reconciled and we could make distributions."

Reed: If Ed yoder was not making that sizable of distributions, where did that money go?

John: "It was probably in the office, but not reconciled."

Another criticism was not depositing property tax payments quickly enough. Have you consistently ensured deposits happen within two business days?

"Yes, we do."

Reed: That is, somebody comes in with their check for property taxes and you deposit it within two days?

"Yes, that's correct. That was the hard and fast rule I made that we will follow state statute. Hence the reason we could make the distribution double the previous year. We got the money in the bank in a timely manner."

Can you tell me about a mistake you've made during your time as Treasurer?

"I can't."

Anything else you'd like to add about your platform or anything?

"I hope that the voting public sees that we've made changes in the office, we're making it more efficient and effective, and they acknowledge that with a vote to keep me in office."