Rene Oberer
Age: 54
Education: Associate Degree in commercial art and advertising, Sinclair Community College
Current residence: Butler Twp.
Current employment: Retired
Political experience: Candidate in 2010 3rd Congressional District Republican primary and 2011 Vandalia-Butler school board race
Political party: Republican
Carolyn Rice
Age: 58
Education: Bachelor of sciene in education, Miami University; Master of Business Administration, Wright State University
Current residence: Centerville
Current employment: Montgomery County Treasurer
Political experience: Treasurer since 2007 appointment, and won reelection in 2008. Ran for 38th District seat in the Ohio House and lost the 2006
Politicla party: Democrat
Montgomery County Treasurer Carolyn Rice says she has made improvements in her office and worked with homeowners and other offices or organizations to keep properties filled or useful and help property owners pay delinquent taxes.
Rene Oberer, who is challenging Rice in the race for the treasurer’s office, says she wants to help the county government operate more efficiently and protect property owners’ rights in the face of the new county land bank that Rice helped establish during her term.
The two — Rice a Democrat and Oberer a Republican — are vying for an office that faces challenges including helping the county rebound from the foreclosure crisis to collect property taxes that fund schools, police, fire, road maintenance and community services.
“I walked into a good situation, but I brought that experience of new, fresh eyes,” Rice said. “To this day, we continue to question the way we do things.”
Said Oberer, “I believe government is getting too large. The spending is out of control, and in order to get things back under control we have to start locally.”
Rice was appointed to the treasurer’s post in February 2007 to succeed Hugh Quill, who accepted a Cabinet post in then-Gov. Ted Strickland’s administration. It was her first public office. She had previously run for 38th District seat in the Ohio House and lost the 2006 election against John White, 56 percent to 44 percent. She won election to the treasurer’s office in 2008 against Gary V. Ross.
Oberer has twice run for public office. She was defeated by incumbent Mike Turner in the Republican primary for the 3rd Congressional District in 2010, 87 percent to 13 percent, and lost a bid for the Vandalia-Butler school board in November 2011.
Before her work as treasurer, Rice was director of executive education at the Raj Soin School of Business at Wright State. She also worked in marketing for companies including LexisNexis, Reynolds & Reynolds and Dames & Moore.
Oberer said she gained business experience helping with her family’s flower business, Oberer’s Flowers, growing up. She also operated Rene’s Dance Studio because of her love for dance and jointly operated two businesses with her husband, Earth Friendly Stoves and HeatSeekers Thermal Imaging.
One of the major issues facing the office is the collection of delinquent property taxes. Rice said about 94 percent of property owners in the county generally pay their taxes, but the recession and a rash of foreclosures since 2007 have placed tax collection at the forefront of the office’s duties that also include managing the county’s investments, collecting and disbursing cash assets and marketing the sale of county notes and bonds.
The property tax and assessment issue is a significant one for the treasurer’s office. As of Friday, there were 27,006 properties out of about 250,000 in the county that were delinquent on property taxes or assessments. The total delinquent bill was $136 million, although about 7 percent of the delinquencies dated back to the year 2000 or before, and those accounts combine for about 18 percent of the total bill.
Rice said she and her staff have created new and unique ways to encourage delinquent property owners to begin payment plans. For those who face delinquencies and come to the office seeking a payment plan, they are now placed on a monthly plan to try to help them with easier budgeting, she said.
Rice said her office also began using smaller, more frequent tax lien sales instead of larger annual sales — which became nearly impossible in the poor economy — in an effort to urge delinquent property owners to pay what they owe the county.
“We’ve analyzed how to best focus our efforts and deliver every penny possible,” Rice said. “Personally, I think we have done an excellent job with the challenges we’ve faced.”
Oberer agreed that property and assessment tax collection is a significant issue facing the treasurer’s office. She said she previously faced a slower-than-expected response time between the auditor’s office and treasurer’s office while challenging a property value assessment, which she would work to improve as treasurer. She added she would try to actively reach delinquent owners to help them with their tax issues and ensure that the county collects what it is owed.
“Trying to reach out with the personal touch as much as possible rather than the threatening letters, in a kinder, gentler manner,” Oberer said. “Getting people to cooperate to find out what the problems are and find out ways we can deal with the different issues.”
Rice touted her leadership in the formation and passage of a state law allowing land banks and the formation of the county’s land bank, the Montgomery County Land Reutilization Corporation. Oberer said she wants to ensure such an operation does not threaten property rights for individuals or that a county does not compete in the private market with landowners.
The land bank allows the county to acquire abandoned properties, erase taxes or liens from the titles and find new owners to allow them to again produce taxes. Rice said she promised to start the land bank effort small and that she has, acquiring the first two properties in August. The next challenge is finding permanent funding for the land bank effort.
Oberer said there are positive aspects to the land bank, but she would need to investigate it further before deciding if any changes need to be made.
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