The Times - Serving Waitsburg, Dayton and the Touchet Valley

Dear Editor,

When Sheriff Turner took office in 2011 I spent a large amount of time reviewing several years of the Walla Walla County and Sheriff's Office financial reports, in order to fully understand the budgeting and accounting process. As a Certified Public Accountant (CPA), I wanted to know the history and pattern of expenditures, as well as what Sheriff Turner had to work with.

A couple of things became obvious quickly. First, in order to deeply understand the accounting and budgeting process involved in managing the Sheriff's budget (or any county budget), you need quite a lot of information; second, you must dedicate time to understanding government accounting. Developing, overseeing, and balancing the sheriff's budget is a challenging, complex task. Our current Sheriff John Turner has performed this work professionally and to high accounting standards.

As a CPA, I could write in depth about the detailed workings of the Sheriff's Office budget; however, I cannot do that in the space allotted here. The most important thing worth saying about the Sheriff's Office budget is that Sheriff Turner's budgets are well planned and absolutely sound. He has never gone over budget - not once since he has been in office.

Nevertheless, the sound bite of misinformation that he has gone "over budget" continues to be repeated, even by those who know the facts. This is wrong. The accounting truth is this: over $430,000 of his budgets in the last three years have been returned to the County.

Please be an informed voter and go to the Walla Walla County website for this information. Or, you can clearly see the Sheriff's Office budget on his website re-electjohnturner.com.

Sheriff Turner is a great leader with exceptional management skills, financial acumen, and personal integrity. Please join me in voting to re-elect Sheriff John Turner in the August 5th primary.

Debora L Zalaznik

Walla Walla