Government : Meet the candidate: Hayley Rippel

Editor's Note: Today we continue our election coverage with a profile of Hayley Rippel, the Republican candidate for Auditor. As with other profiles, we offer this information in the candidate's own words. I am Hayley Rippel, a lifelong resident of Benton County. I was born and raised in Vinton, Iowa. I graduated from Washington High School in 1992. After High School, I attended Kirkwood College for my general education. I am married to my husband Jeff for 23 years. My parents are Kathy and Doug Tumilty and the late Kenneth Mahr. My in-laws are Jim and Sharon Rippel, all from Vinton. We own and reside on an acreage north of town. We have three sons, Dylan, Tyler and Chase. Our oldest, Dylan is a junior at UNI. Tyler is a freshman at Mt Mercy University in Cedar Rapids and is on the baseball team there. Chase our youngest is a 7th grader at Vinton-Shellsburg Middle School. With all three being active in numerous sports, 4-H and other activities, it has kept us very social in our community. Our family also helps on the family farm and grows sweet corn that our boys like to sell in town. I am a member of the Vinton Presbyterian Church, Vinton Country Club, Vinton-Shellsburg Athletic Boosters and Farm Bureau. I also volunteer at numerous events in the area. I have worked in the Benton County Auditor's Office going on 18 years as a Deputy Auditor. I am also a Notary Public and a GIS technician. I have experience in all areas of the position. When people hear the title Auditor, they assume accounting and taxes, but that is very minimal considering all the duties this office does. I have learned more being in this office getting hands on training and first-hand experience than I could have ever got with a college degree. The Auditor is not just the Commissioner of Elections; there are other responsibilities such as providing human resource services to all our county's employees. We do the payroll, payables and receivables and other auditing/budgeting duties for the county. The Auditor also serves as Secretary to the Board of Supervisors. With that being said, I've been spending a lot of time in the supervisor's meetings these past months. Most recently I've helped with FEMA requests for the start of the flooding disaster recovery process. I've learned to write resolutions, pass ordinances along with providing the minutes and various publication requirements to our local newspapers. I am currently serving on the hiring team for an in-house IT Employee. Another big part of the Auditor's office is the Real Estate transfers for property taxation. I was named the project manager for the new software conversion for our real estate's system upgrade. All county offices use this desktop software to maintain and edit all of the parcels in Benton County for the taxation process. Along with applying the levy rates, our office provides the Valuation report to the state every year. I volunteered to be one of the testing counties with the states software system years ago. I was also a big part of the start-up of our county's (GIS) Geographical Information System and I am a Beacon Certified Administrator. Beacon is our website host to our county's public GIS layers. I oversee the uploading of the county's data and manage the subscriptions to this site. Over the years I have attended numerous conferences and various certified training sessions. I am a member of (ICIT) Iowa Counties Information Technologies. I have served on our district committee whom had to plan and run the conference. Most recently I am serving on the (ITAG) Iowa Technology And Geospatial Conference Committee. This is going to be a combined conference for ICIT and (IGIC) Iowa Geographical Information Council members. I feel serving on these committees and attending off site sessions and conferences is time well spent. Along with gaining better knowledge of my duties, I have developed relationships with other county officials, whom I feel comfortable enough to rely on them for help or advice at any time. I am a very honest and approachable person who works well with the public and my peers. I feel it is in Benton County's best interest to elect someone with experience. I will continue to provide my best effort as I have serving as Deputy Auditor. I am truly grateful for the support I've received from all of my family, friends, and members of the community. I look forward to the opportunity to continue giving Benton County experienced leadership and appreciate every vote.