For county auditor: Brad Jones
By:
Wednesday, October 22, 2008
For multiple reasons The News-Gazette endorses Republican Brad Jones for Champaign County auditor.
First, Jones has a much broader financial background than his Democratic opponent, Tony Fabri. While Jones has an MBA from Emory University, 18 years of experience in financial fields and most recently has been vice chairman of the county board's finance committee, Fabri's experience has largely been on the job, both as a county board member and as the auditor appointed two years ago to replace Mike Frerichs.
Second, in most cases we've endorsed the candidate from the party that does not control the county board. With what appears for now to be an invincible Democratic majority on the board, we believe taxpayers would be better served by a Republican auditor. That kind of fiscal firewall worked well when Laurel Prussing and later Gerrie Parr, both Democrats, were able to act as aggressive fiscal watchdogs over what was a Republican county board. Today those roles would be reversed.
Finally, we agree with one of Jones' main campaign points: that it's not a good idea for the chairman of the political party that controls the county board to also serve as county auditor. It certainly would be more difficult for the chairman of the Democratic Party to hold the Democratic county board accountable for misspending and other fiscal-related mistakes.
Jones promises to do more with the auditor's office than to make sure the bills get paid. He said he will be vocal about overspending and offer more thorough financial analysis on issues like early retirement plans and budgets. We believe Brad Jones is the financially prudent choice for county auditor.