Election 2026: Candidate for Washington County Auditor Rhonda Greene
As the 2026 general election approaches, The Washington County Times is publishing written interviews with candidates in contested races affecting Washington County.
The Times reached out to all candidates for whom we were able to obtain contact information and invited them to participate. If you are a candidate in a contested race and have not received an invitation, please contact us so we can make sure you have an opportunity to participate.
Candidates were provided with questions tailored to their campaign, personal history, and the office they are seeking. We encouraged candidates to answer the questions in their own words and to refrain from using ChatGPT or other artificial intelligence tools when preparing their responses.
All candidate responses have been published as submitted, without editing or alteration. The Washington County Times does not endorse political candidates, and any opinions or statements expressed within the following interview are the candidate's own.
Why are you running for Auditor, and what do you believe you can do differently?
We’ve run for office before, not necessarily to win, but to correct our local public officials’ behavior. Most of the time their behavior would be corrected for a year or two. Not anymore. Our Public Officials’ behavior has become aggressive, outlandish and dangerous.
What I would do differently.
The Auditor’s Office needs to be reorganized from the roots on up. The State has an Auditor’s manual, forms and calendar on their website. It looks like the State wants the Auditors’ Offices to do well. We can start there to get a good framework going.
Get the office organized to the point where information is “upload and send” ready. The current Auditor’s office is not properly recording the County information. That is why they have been failing State and Federal Audits year after year.
Get the Payroll function out of the Auditor’s Office. Take bids and find a payroll service that will make sure that the County Employees are paid on time with the right amount taken out. It may seem to cost a lot, but we can eliminate one of the positions in the office to offset the cost. This will help with employee retention in our County Offices, being paid on time and with the right amount has been a problem lately.
Comb through and evaluate the County technology for the Office. I have a strong background in technology – computers, internet and webwork. The County’s Tech Consultant performance has not been the best. The County’s technology may be severely substandard and unusable. Once in office, I will look everything over to make sure that there are no security holes.
Archive the County Video and Documents. The current Auditor’s Office has destroyed documents older than 5 years. The County meeting video (that cost thousands of County Tax Dollars to record) from 2015 through 2025 has been deleted. Our history is precious and cannot be replaced.
I will upload information online as soon as possible to inform the public in real time with real information. I will organize it in a way that people can easily access what they need. You will know what I know in real time.
Help the rest of the County Boards, Town Boards, and Trustees with the Livestreaming Law. This is not a normal or expected duty for the Auditor’s Office, but I believe that if I have a way to help, then I should help. Get everyone up and running – Livestreaming their meetings, posting their meeting dates and uploading their documents to comply with State Law.
The Auditor’s Office has recently faced criticism from yourself and other members of the public who say financial information and public records can be difficult to obtain. What specifically would you change about the way the office handles requests for information and communicates with the public?
I want to get the office organized to the point where information is “upload and send” ready. The easiest way to do this is to work as you go.
For example, at the end of a Commissioner or Council meeting what I intend to do is to just scan all the documents right there – Claims, Payroll, signed Minutes and Presentation papers. Not only will you have a time stamped file, but a complete record of what took place in the meeting that can be matched to the video so it can be downloaded.
The 2020 to 2025 Claims and Payroll copies produced by this Auditor’s Office that I purchased did not have consistent signature pages with dates.
Most of the Commissioner signature pages could have been part of any set of Claims. Most of these reports lack basic information like what was signed for and when. The only thing that I could do with these papers was to try to figure out the date and scan them in sections.
You can find these documents that I have scanned so far on IndianaProud.com at https://indianaproud.com/CountyCommissioner.html
These reports need to be understandable both to the State and to the Community.
The Indiana State Board of Accounts’ most recent audit identified several issues involving Washington County’s financial reporting, internal controls, capital assets and purchasing procedures. What is your assessment of those findings, and what would you do differently to address them?
Frankly, it kind of just comes down to doing the job you were elected to do - instead of what has always been done.
The State has Manual, Forms and an online calendar that the Auditor is supposed to follow. By no means will it be easy but I will reorganize the Auditor’s Office from the Roots Up. If it is done right, then everyone is protected.
Once again, work as you go.
The Auditor works closely with the County Council and Commissioners but also has an independent responsibility to maintain accurate financial records. How would you handle a situation in which you believed another county official or department was making a financial decision that was improper or not in the county’s best interest?
The Auditor is not supposed to write checks or pay bills without the Board responsible, Department Head, Commissioners and Council signing off on it.
In a lot of ways, the Auditor does not have free will and should not legally write checks without Board approval (like seems to have been done in this current office).
If a public official is being a “bad actor”, just make sure that the public knows what is going on so they can be encouraged to do the right thing. If it hasn't been through the correct channels, then the check doesn’t get written.
Turning on the light is one of the most powerful tools out there along with being able to say, “No, that doesn’t look right”.
What specific changes would you make to the Auditor’s Office’s internal controls, record-keeping or financial reporting during your first year?
Find out what forms the State needs to take in accurate information. The State Auditor’s Office has an Auditor manual online with a Calendar and Forms. It looks like they want Auditors to successfully run an office, so I will rely on that information.
Because I have been watching local government for over two decades, I have a basic understanding of the County budget and how it works. It isn’t a wonderful situation I will be walking into, but I am not overwhelmed.
It will be a lot of work because it looks like we will have to reorganize from the roots on up. I believe that the office can be reorganized in such a way that it should make sense and not be such a burden on the office.
You have been a vocal critic of how Washington County government operates for years. What do you believe is the single biggest problem with the way county government currently conducts its business, and what role can the Auditor play in correcting it?
Doing things the way that they have always been done with no concern to the years of failed State and Federal Audits. By cleaning up the Auditor’s Office and presenting the information to the public in an understandable way (almost instantly), there are very few places for corruption to hide.
The Auditor is the key to cleaning up the County. Almost everything in the County goes through the Auditor’s Office at some point and in some way. If people know that things are under control and being done in a legal manner, it will take the stress off of the rest of the offices. Hopefully they will be able to function better and with less stress. Might even help with Employee retention.
If elected, what is the single biggest priority you would pursue during your first year as Washington County Auditor?
The Auditor’s Office needs to be reorganized from the roots on up. That is the main Day One problem. But if you get a good foundation in place in the very beginning, it should get better from there.
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