Hambleton resigns after Chapman’s ‘slander’

[Editor’s note: Dallas County Treasurer Mitch Hambleton submitted the following letter to the Dallas County Board of Supervisors Tuesday, Oct. 10.]

Good morning. I wanted to take some time to provide some insight into my office since I was elected and going forward.

When I first took office in 2015, my goal was to use the 30-plus years of experience that I had as a CPA in corporate industry and my 17 years of city elected office experience. I have been through many process improvement efforts, system selections and implementations, mergers and acquisitions. With that experience under my belt, I was determined to make government more efficient and effective, while at the same time, delivering excellent customer service.

The previous Dallas County Treasurer, Darrell Bauman, did a fantastic job in bringing on good, quality staff and operating an office with solid procedures. He made it easy. Yet I was interested in creating an atmosphere of change. I wanted to be Best of Class. While most people don’t enjoy change, I knew that there would be a huge benefit to changing many things. One of my first challenges was in the Motor Vehicle Department. While they were doing a great job, I got feedback from them that they just didn’t like their coworker who was sitting next to them. I received comments like: “I don’t like how she smacks her gum,” or “She is too loud on the phone.” Hearing this, I called a staff meeting where I described how greedy I am. I let them know that I’m constantly looking at everyone around me and looking for things that they do or how they behave to make myself a better person and employee. I challenged them to do the same. I also knew that the best way to implement change in an organization was to get those who have the boots on the ground to suggest improvements.

So — we took a bunch of road trips. We visited Polk, Story, Warren, Boone and Carroll counties. One front-line staff, a manager and myself met with the same positions from those other counties for free-range discussions. I challenged my staff to figure out what and how our sister counties are performing their tasks and how we might improve what we are doing. I let them know that I cared about them and that their thoughts are important. My staff came back with many improvements that have resulted in some major improvements to how they were doing things, thus reducing our time expense of operations.

I also looked at how the Motor Vehicle and Tax departments worked together and exchanged information. The tax area, in its Treasury function, receives all of the cash, checks and notifications of web, ACH and dealer transactions each day. In addition, they balance those sources of cash against the DOTs ARTS system. At the end of the month, they balance their summary reports in ARTS to the sum of their daily activity. Nancy grew tired of me asking, “Who uses that information?” “Where does that information come from?” “Is that in electronic form?” In the end, I created a daily spreadsheet that can be shared by both areas, where Nancy and her staff can balance their cash sources and the needed ARTS product accounting and export it in a format that is usable by the tax area. All told, those few changes saves us three to four hours over our entire staff per week.

In my tax area, I was interested in our controls. In addition to having passed the CPA exam, I am also a Certified Internal Auditor which is a field of study that has a large focus on internal control systems. The worst thing that I could think of occurring during my office tenure would be to have funds being stolen. Recognizing that, I was determined to build procedures that ensured that that could not happen not only during my tenure, but also my successors. I think that Chris on my staff grew concerned as I voiced things like: “If I were to steal money, this is exactly how I would do it.” I then built in requirements for dual approvals and secondary verification and reviews to prevent exactly what I had proposed. I then provided my tax staff with explicit instructions of the Code of Iowa requirement in how they should react and whom they should report any irregularities to.

When I started, our primary banking was performed at Wells Fargo. Their crediting rates were extremely low and their fees were very high. I sent out an RFP to local banks and Lincoln Savings Bank won our business. They have been an excellent partner. They’ve readily taken on electronic deposits, and have fee structure that is very low. In addition, we have an open dialogue on the rate that they credit us on our deposits. They are currently matching the IPAIT rate. That relationship, as well as watching our cash flows and reminding banks when a rate hike was in place has increased investment income by millions over the past nine years.

Based upon our visit to Polk County, I purchased machinery that could scan checks and tax stubs. That scanner is used for 99% of all payments coming into the tax office as well as all motor vehicle checks. We have a digital image of every check and tax stub going back to 2015. It is searchable. We can report on it, and it is balanced to our accounts and systems each day. An added advantage to scanning checks is that, previously, checks deposited at the bank weren’t credited to our account until the following business day (meaning that there was a day lag until we began to earn interest on the deposit). With electronic image deposits, those funds are in our account that very day. This really made a big difference last month. During September 2023, we deposited $48.7 million electronically. With interest rates at 5%, we earned an extra $6,700 that we would not have earned if we didn’t have this system. But the biggest impact of our scanning is in time savings. Comparing how we were processing tax payments before to how we do it now, I estimate that 80% of our tax collection work is accomplished by scanning. Additionally, everything that we scan is shredded after two weeks, saving us a large amount of hard file storage space. I don’t like paper!

All of our daily and monthly balancing is electronic. We use a common naming convention that allows for any day to be accessed just by the file name. Researching transactions has been made simpler due to these changes.

I believe that the biggest asset that the county has is in our staff. I’ve been to (the Dallas County Board of Supervisors) many times seeking increases in staff compensation. A properly compensated staff is much less likely to leave employment here, thereby lessening retraining expense as well as having competent staff giving the correct answers to the public.

The outside drop box has been in place for 3-4 years. Now, the public has 24/7 access to drop off plates and payments for tax and vehicle registrations. The more that the public can do outside our office, whether it be through the drop box, mail or over the web, the less staff time that it takes and the happier the public is, all at a lower expense.

Coupled with moving the motor vehicle area to the courthouse, we went to Qmatic. With the office setup as it is, in order to maximize the public counter space and yet call the customers when we are able to serve them, Qmatic has been a Godsend. One of our reactions to COVID was to go to a web-based appointment system. Last August, we added a survey feature that allows customers to provide feedback on their impressions of the appointment system as well as employee performance. I’ve shared summaries of those comments with you in the past, and you may have noticed that you’re now receiving a daily report of the comments received. Fully 95% of our customers are thrilled with the appointment system and never want to return to walk-up. Nonetheless, we are continually challenging ourselves about ways that we can serve the public better. While we’re still not able to handle walk-in title work due to the time that each transaction requires, we do offer that any questions can immediately be handled with a phone call. To the extent possible, we open additional resources for appointment times each day. This allows folks who decide that day they want to do something in our office, they can still get an appointment and not have to wait for very long.

I feel that my goal of Best in Class has been achieved. In my motor vehicle area, over the past few months, we’ve been visited by both Polk and Johnson counties about how we manage appointments. Mary Wells in Polk County indicated that, after implementing our methods, their wait times had reduced from 45 minutes to just 4 minutes per customer. That not only helps the customers but also helps with staff retention as they can serve happy rather than owly customers. On our tax side of the department, Marion County started to scan tax payments and all of their checks in August, and Dubuque, Woodbury and Sioux counties have either personally visited our office or have spoken with me and are giving scanning serious consideration in 2024.

I participated in a workshop here on Sept. 19 where I gave you statistics on our motor vehicle transaction volume as well as the immediate need for two new staff due to extremely high stress levels and overworked staff. I answered all of your questions at that time. You indicated that you wanted to discuss it with Operations to make sure that there were funds available. I left it with you that if you had any additional questions prior to the meeting or needed me to return, I would be quite willing to do so. I heard nothing.

My mother passed away in May. On Tuesday, Sept. 26, as I was heading to Mary Greeley Hospital in Ames to check up on my 90-year-old father who had self-admitted the prior Sunday, hopeful to visit with a doctor, I received several alarming texts that indicated that the board chair and a non-board member were bashing my department, that it was my fault my staff is stressed and overworked. After slandering me, he voted against the staffing request and requested that HR communicate requirements be put on my office for helping the public.

Things really are brought into perspective when you’re faced with personal or family health concerns and death. It causes one to reflect on what is truly important in their lives and what needs to end.

(Dallas County Supervisors) Brad (Golightly) and Mark (Hanson), I greatly appreciate the support that you’ve given me for the past nine years. I am proud to say that I have achieved my goal of transforming the Dallas County Treasurer’s office into Best of Class. However, I am totally tired of the constant and irrational sniping and criticism by our current Board Chair (Kim Chapman). I will not tolerate lies and attacks on my character, particularly in my absence. Additionally, shouting down fellow board members as they come to my defense is incomprehensible. I have no interest in being associated with such an organization. Because of this, I am hereby resigning at the close of business on Tuesday, Nov. 7, 2023.

I urge the board to consider appointing my Tax Administrator Summer Portzen to serve as treasurer until the next general election. Summer manages all of the county funds and tax processes. Appointing Summer would be consistent with the board action in filling the sheriff as well as the county attorney vacancies. Summer will do an excellent job.

I also urge the board to carefully consider your actions related to our Dallas County Recorder. ReNae (Arnold) made the same mistakes that I made when I first took office. I came in all fired up and wanting to make all sorts of changes that the Code of Iowa clearly gave me authority to do. What I failed to recognize was the way to get those done here. ReNae was simply doing what she viewed as best for her office and the public and businesses that rely upon her. As recorder, she is front line. She understands well the duties of her department and is accountable to the taxpayers for everything in her office. Enacting some sort of revenge on her decision in the form of staffing or future budgets will not serve the taxpayers of this county as needed. Ultimately, your role is the same as is ReNae’s. She and you are here to serve the public. The public is best served by a competent, well-trained staff that have the systems and tools to best deliver those services.

I appreciate your time today and am proud of the work that I’ve done here.

Dallas County Treasurer Mitch Hambleton
Dallas Center