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The auditor's office is the public-facing department of the city.

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We take payments for utility bills, parking tickets, dog and cat licenses, chicken licenses.

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We license contractors, a lot of different things like that.

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I'd say the primary interaction that people have is with the utility billing.

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Paying utility bills, there's lots of different options you can do. You can pay with cash,

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money order, credit card, check. You can go online and pay or come into the office.

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You can mail in payments. There is auto pay available too.

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A lot of the position as the city auditor is about relationships. Whether it's with our

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financial institutions or businesses, our liquor licenses. So to keep all that straight and to stay

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in contact with the businesses. And then relationships with customers. So working

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with the customers that are having troubles making their payments and that type of thing.

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Providing them guidance on where they can go get some assistance. I think the worst thing is

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you know when we get a call and the first thing that the customer says is this is the fourth time

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I've been transferred. I try to assure them that it'll be the last time you're transferred until

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we know that we get you to the right place. Election day is you know run by the county now.

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We've got an agreement with the county that they'll do that. But it's our responsibility to have all

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city measures and any candidates that are properly filled out their paperwork put together

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and get that over to the county so that they can print their ballots and then conduct the

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actual election. There are occasions when we will have a special election and the city office here

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will have to conduct the election ourselves. Obviously working in this department we deal

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with a lot of water issues and it feels good when you're able to help someone understand

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because a lot of people that come in or call are either you know they're just not understanding

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their bill. They want to know how to read it and so when you're able to explain that to them

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they really appreciate it when you take the time to explain that to them. You know I had experience

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in municipal government before and I had no you know we'd moved down to Fargo and I was working

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for somebody that was quite a wealthy individual and I found that just to be so unfulfilling.

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And I remember I was October of 1999 and I told my wife I'm going to get back into city government

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where I can fill my soul and that Sunday there was a block ad in the paper and it was for a city

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auditor and it was just a checklist for me. I had done all of the things on there and so they gave

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me a chance and I'm just so thankful to have the chance to work for the city. It's been a

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great place to work and great people that work for the city so I think that's why I've stayed so long.

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Way too long.