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County auditor sets sights on transparency with newly shaped office

By Harrison Epstein - | Jan 5, 2023
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Utah County Auditor-elect Rod Mann poses for a portrait in his Highland home on Dec. 21, 2022.
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Utah County Auditor Rod Mann speaks after taking the oath of office during a swearing-in ceremony held at the Utah County Historic Courthouse in Provo on Tuesday, Jan. 3, 2022.
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Utah County Auditor-elect Rod Mann poses for a portrait in his Highland home on Dec. 21, 2022.

Having taken the oath of office on Tuesday, Rod Mann is ready to get started as the new Utah County auditor. While doing so, Mann quoted Thomas Payne and George Washington, among others, to share his views on apolitical work and civic duty.

“Sometimes politics gets testy, we get wrapped up in issues and we forget the … good men on the wrong side of the issue with good motives,” Mann told the crowd. “We just have to temper our judgment of others.”

This is the philosophy with which Mann told the Daily Herald he’ll move forward in the job. Mann is holding countywide office for the first time after serving in municipal office as a city council member and as the mayor of Highland.

He is the first full-time auditor for Utah County since the Utah County Commission voted in December 2021 to divide the Clerk/Auditor’s Office in two. The roles were placed on the ballot for the first time at the county GOP primary last April and the general election ballot in November.

As the only candidate seeking the office in November, Mann received 100% of the 165,814 ballots cast. As the auditor, he is responsible for providing internal accounting services for the county. According to the Utah Association of Counties, he will maintain Utah County’s financial records and prepare the annual county budget, along with assisting the state in tax duties.

Priority No. 1 in office, Mann said, will be improving transparency in Utah County, particularly by educating the public on issues, rather than let an information vacuum exist.

“Our department affects every project we deal with, the money we have. We statutorily have to put the tentative budget together. So we get to work with all the departments. And I think that’s an area where we can make big strides and improvements and build trust,” he said.

He envisions the office working with residents to allow people to find the information they’re searching for as easily as possible. One example came from his own researching of county budget information. When looking for data, he found PDFs online and suggested putting the Excel spreadsheet — which was used to make the PDF — online to have more search-ability with the data.

Included with the future information will be trending figures, showing year-over-year changes.

“You can see how we’re doing relative to past years, because that’s useful,” he explained.

Also on the docket for Mann is a weekly meeting with the civil attorney assigned to the office, something he did as mayor. He contends that having a better understanding of the law, through those meetings, will allow Mann to better serve the public.

Mann seeks as well to follow Utah’s lead with the statewide Accountable Budget Process. The process means that every five years, though it can be broken into one-year increments, the budget must be combed through and every line evaluated.

“It’s not every nickel, but the main lines, the main budget items,” Mann said. “I’m gonna do it on (the county auditor’s office) first before I ask anyone else to do it. So I’m gonna see if we can do it this year, on us, and then tweak it so that it works for county.”

Mann told the Daily Herald he had discussed this idea with the Utah Taxpayers Association and Rep. Jefferson Moss of Saratoga Springs, who sponsored the bill creating budgeting rules, and both support his plan.

He went on to discuss property taxes — that because cities and counties don’t index property taxes for inflation, they functionally go down every year, leaving projects underfunded.

“Every few years, you really should — if you’re responsible — raise property tax just a little bit. What happens is they don’t. And then it’s 20 years and instead of raising it just a little, they have to raise it a lot. And then people go nuts,” he said.

A hope, though he doesn’t expect to have one in 2023, is for the county to begin holding open house meetings on the budget to gather public input and explain the process.

“If you want information about how the county works financially, you’ll be able to access it. And if you can’t get to it, call me and I’ll make sure that you have what you need,” he said.

Simplicity and transparency have always been themes for Mann in his professional life. He began as a computer programmer out of college. His first job was running computer systems for engineers at Motorola as they designed programs for playing the radio on early cellphones.

His work in politics and government started after his move to Highland in 2003. After running for precinct chair and attending GOP meeting, he felt a sense that “we can do better across the board.”

After the City Council made a decision he disagreed with, Mann and others started an, ultimately successful, referendum campaign — which led him to run for a council spot with the same goal of doing better.

The big issue at the time in Highland was road repairs, which were needed, but required a property tax increase to pay for them.

“The problem was, it’s really hard to pass up a property tax increase when people haven’t been educated on ‘OK, what are we gonna do with this money? Why do we need it?'” Mann said.

He believes still that giving people the information, and going with a fee rather than a property tax increase, would make the difference with voters.

Once he got into office, they tried once again to repair the roads. This time, he organized an advisory board of locals with expertise along with the people who led the referendum against the last road repair ballot issue. After years of working to come up with a plan, one was made and outreach began. They did road shows, going to different schools in the area to meet with residents and explain the plan.

With about 60 residents attending the first meeting, people said they were willing to pay more money, over a shorter period of time, because they agreed with the plan.

“It opened my eyes and it said, ‘Look, if you just educate people, let them know what the options are’ — because we gave them the options: we could do nothing, we can do it this way or we can do it that way — explain how roads work. It works,” Mann said.

In terms of a team, there will not be a chief deputy in the Auditor’s Office. Mann will be overseeing tax administration, budget accounting, purchasing and auditing. Staying in place will be Rudy Livingston, the county budget manager and Mann’s primary opponent for the role, along with financial services manager Jeremy Walker. They are joined by a new head of the auditing office who was recently hired away from the state auditor’s office.

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