That was 22 years ago, during the 2000 election that is best remembered to this day for its hanging chads in Florida.
Helveston, a Democrat and former county administrator, lost the general election to Republican Al Sessions in the race for Mobile County, Ala., Treasurer. The office remained intact, operating at a budget of close to $200,000 back then. The total budget is $416,680 today.
But the debate over whether the office should be abolished never ended.
Until now.
The days of Mobile County having a treasurer are coming to end, leaving Jefferson County as the only county government with a full-time treasurer who operates independent of the county commission.
Alabama Gov. Kay Ivey signed HB213 into law on Tuesday, officially abolishing the Mobile County office and transferring its duties to the county commission. The change is effective in 2024.
The legislation sailed out of the Alabama Legislature without opposition.
“It was rather simple for me because it was all about efficiencies,” said state Rep. Barbara Drummond, D- Mobile, the bill’s sponsor. “It will save taxpayers a lot of money.”
The savings won’t be immediate. The office will be allowed to remain in operations through the remainder of current Treasurer Phil Benson’s term, which won’t conclude for another two years. Benson won re-election to a four-year term in 2020.
Under the current budget, the lame-duck office will continue costing taxpayers money. For the four years of Benson’s final term, that amounts to approximately $1.7 million.
Drummond said that waiting until the end of the term made the most sense since it allows enough time for the county commission to restructure its finance department. The county’s finance director serves as an administrator under the county commission.
The treasurer’s office is primarily tasked with cutting checks and, up until 2019, exercised some minimal control over investments that are allowed under the County Commission’s policy and state law.
Drummond said that Benson’s staff of three employees will remain employed under the county’s finance director. A fiscal note from the state’s Legislative Services Agency was not attached to HB213, which would have provided an estimate on cost savings.
Sharee Broussard, a spokeswoman for the Mobile County Commission, said the total annual cost savings will be $52,000 “in salary, expenses and operating costs.”
Drummond said the legislation will also lead to efficiencies by consolidating the work into the county’s finance office which she said is equipped to handle the treasurer’s responsibilities.
Derogatory Remarks
Drummond said the legislation was not related to Benson’s derogatory remarks in 2019 about LGBTQ people. Benson received attention for posting a remark that included the phrase “freaking queers” on the Mobile County GOP’s Facebook page. The remark was underneath a story about a Colorado cake shop caught up in a legal battle over refusing to make a cake celebrating someone’s gender transition.
Benson, in subsequent interviews, doubled down on the remark and said he found gay people and rainbow imagery offensive. He later apologized.
The remark occurred around the same time the Mobile County Commission transitioned the county’s investment strategies from the treasurer’s office to a third-party financial firm, sparking further talks about dissolving the office.
Benson did not return a call for comment.
“It did not make any impact on my decision to sponsor the bill,” Drummond said. “If (the controversy did have an impact), we would have done this at the time of the incident. But this is truly about wanting to make the county more efficient.”
The remarks created a stir in Mobile, and kickstarted an effort by LGTBQ activists to have Mobile adopt a non-discrimination ordinance, which has yet to happen.
Marionna Mendiola, a representative with Mobile Alabama Pride, criticized Benson at the time for remarks she said was unbecoming of an elected official who is an “elected representative of all citizens of Mobile County.”
She told AL.com this week that Benson’s comments are “in the past” but that she still feels it was inappropriate for him, as an elected official, to use his office to “promote those opinions.”
State Rep. Sam Jones, D- Mobile, and a former Mobile County Commissioner and mayor, said that lawmakers have always felt that it makes more sense to have the county’s finance department oversee all the duties of the treasurer’s office, which includes handling the county’s accounts.
“It will end up being the best move for the county and the citizens of Mobile County,” Jones said.
Mobile County Commissioner Merceria Ludgood, in a statement, said that shutting down the office will “eliminate some redundancies, yield greater efficiency of operations, and allow better implementation of best practices.”
According to the county’s fiscal year 2021-2022 budget – which runs from October 1 to September 30 – the office is allocated $377,761 for personnel, $35,954 in operational expenses and $2,965 for utilities.
The county’s finance department is run through the county commission, which receives an annual budget of $12.4 million. Of that, $6.8 million is spent on personnel although the county budget does not split out how much is spent on the finance department.
A Long Road
Jones said that county officials have struggled with the treasurer’s office since at least the mid-90s, when former Treasurer Vivian Beckerle and the commissioners butted heads over how the office was investing money.
Helveston, who was the county administrator from 1971-1995, spent much of his career scrutinizing the office. He died in 2013.
Press-Register archives indicate that Helveston and the county commissioners tried in 1981 to get legislation adopted to abolish the treasurer’s office, but the efforts stalled.
By 1995, Helveston fretted that the office was handling finances like Orange County, California, which fell into bankruptcy in the 1990s over risky investment strategies handled by the Treasurer-Tax Collector’s Department.
“Like Orange County, the Mobile County treasurer wields ‘absolute power’ with no checks and balances and no oversight by the county commissioners, who are ultimately responsible for the safety of these funds,” Helveston wrote.
Mobile County voters have, over the years, backed the candidates who pushed to keep the office open.
Helveston lost his bid to win the treasurer’s office in 2000, despite a sole focus of abolishing it. Sessions, the winner, served three terms before retiring in 2012.
Benson ran for the office in 2012, on a platform to keep it operating as an elected position. His opponent, Adam Bourne, wanted the office dissolved.
Voters backed Benson during the GOP primary by over 3,000 votes. He then went on to win the General Election against his Democratic opponent, Christian Smith.
©2022 Advance Local Media LLC. Distributed by Tribune Content Agency, LLC.
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