Fairhope appoints Kim Creech treasurer
By GUY BUSBY
guy@gulfcoastmedia.com
FAIRHOPE – Former Baldwin County Clerk/Treasurer Kim Creech was named Fairhope city treasurer by a unanimous vote of the City Council on Friday.
Council President Jack Burrell said at the special meeting in which Creech was hired that she would start Monday morning.
Creech’s contract was terminated by the Baldwin County Commission in April. She had served as clerk/treasurer since 2010. Commissioners did not give a reason for cancelling her contract.
“We were searching and searching and searching for someone and finally found a candidate that not only all five council members liked tremendously, it was also someone that the mayor said she liked as well and I know that all six of us can work with this person,” Burrell said.
Most of the 30-minute meeting was taken up by a proposal by Mayor Karin Wilson to combine the treasurer’s office with the city Finance Department. She said most cities in Alabama have the treasurer’s office combined with either finance or the city clerk’s office.
“This is about streamlining for efficiency, which pays out 10-fold for taxpayers,” she said.
Councilman Jimmy Conyers said finance and treasury have different functions and that he felt that offices should be separate.
“When you have one person do those, it’s more about the checks and balances,” he said.
Wilson said that the current system does not have checks and balances.
“The most important part of finance department is separation of roles and duties to be compliant. The way we are structured before I made it one department, is not compliant we have a person that can put in the requisition, create a PO (purchase order), input the invoice, cut a check and sign it. That’s not compliant and that’s where we are right now,” she said.
The mayor also objected to a decision to move the treasurer’s office to a location from which it had been moved earlier. She said the office had been moved to its current location to provide better access for city officials who work with the treasurer.
She described the move as “micromanagement,” by Burrell.
“This is all part of the council president’s prerogative,” she said to council members. “If this was really about communication, what it best, y’all would have all been part of this.”
Burrell said state law give city councils the authority to appoint a person to the office of treasurer and to determine where that employee will work.
“State statute gives us the express right to do it. Tells us to do it, but you want to take that away from us,” he said to Wilson.
