Have you ever wondered what the job of the Chesterton Clerk-Treasurer is involves? The Clerk Treasurer is to be in charge of the town finances, financial reporting, and the records. The Clerk Treasurer makes the budget and manages the payroll and accounts. In Chesterton, this position belongs to Courtney Udvare. She has been in office since January 2020 after being elected in November 2019.
When asked what Udvare likes about the job, she talked about how she likes to help the community in a meaningful way. She went to school for accountingand is excited be back in the field.
”Everyone who works for the town has been great to work with and I feel lucky to be part of it,” said Udvare.
While her time as Clerk-Treasurer has been a great experience, she has missed working with the public like she did when she worked at the library.
“My previous job at the library and my job as Clerk-Treasurer, however, do have some similarities. They are both considered government jobs and their finances are set up the same, but they just have different types of funds. The annual reporting process and the budget process are very similar as they both go through Gateway Indiana.”
When asked what she has worked on since being in office, she discussed how she has been learning the ins and outs of this job. Currently, she is working on the budget for the upcoming year. She also talked about some big projects, such as organizing and documenting all the towns’ capital assets. This includes digitizing their old documents and records, closing and transferring money out of dormant funds, and working on new payment options for the utility customers.
The COVID-19 pandemic has made her time in office interesting in more ways than one.
“COVID-19 has made my first six months in office a unique experience! It’s been a challenge for all of us in local government. Right now I am doing the budget for next year and it's been hard to predict what the revenue will be because of COVID-19,” she said. “COVID-19 has already impacted our property tax draws this year and that is the town’s main source of income. The impact next year is likely to be similar, if not worse, depending on the state of the pandemic.”
“We do get some relief from the state if something we buy is a COVID-19 related expense, for example, when we sanitize our meeting room or buy protective gear for our first responders,” she said. I have been tracking those expenses and reporting them to the state”
As Chesterton Clerk-Treasurer, Courtney Udvare has executed important and vital work for Chesterton community since her first day in office.