Leaving the office for good
Grant County Auditor Bill Varney sits at his desk. He is retiring this year.
EPHRATA — Auditor Bill Varney’s office is filled with items from his time with the county.
A Magic Eight-Ball he received in a box from IBM sits on his desk. A joker card from a Rotary Club raffle is tacked to his cork board. Next to it is a map of the voting districts.
The nearly-65-year-old Varney is retiring from the position he’s held for 21 years and is ending his 36-year career working in Grant County.
“I started working at the county in 1976. I was their financial person for their mental health and developmental disability program,” he said. “I did that for 10 years and then they needed someone to come work in the auditor’s office as an accountant ... Then four years after that the auditor retired.”
Varney was appointed to replace the retiring auditor. He wanted the position because it was a step up, he said, adding he already helped in the elections department.
“It’s an interesting job,” he said about his career as auditor. “There’s a lot of different aspects about it. The accounting part of it, dealing with the commissioners, the elections, the voter registration, and then there is the licensing part of it ... There is the reporting part of it.”
When one division of the office becomes slow, another starts getting busy, Varney said.
One of the largest changes was the change in political parties during his time in the position, he said. When Varney started, all of the elected officials were Democrats. Now he is the only remaining declared Democrat holding a county office.
“It all had to do with the building of the dams,” he said. “Grand Coulee Dam, when they put that in, that was pretty much supported by the Democrats at the time.”
Along with the change of parties, the population has nearly doubled since Varney started working for the county, and the county government has become more complex.
“Maybe it’s just because I’m getting old, but it seems like it gets more complex all the time,” he said. “New laws get passed and things get more complex. It’s not that it’s bad, it’s just more details you have to keep track of.”
He pointed to the election process as an example, saying since the 2000 presidential election the federal government added regulations.
“You’re tracking that on two different systems. One of them is the state and one is the (federal.) There has been hundreds of new laws passed dealing with elections,” he said. “I think in this state the elections have been run really well.”
One of the events Varney recalled was the 2004 gubernatorial election between Chris Gregoire and Dino Rossi, which resulted in a recount.
“That was really something. We had to do a hand recount and all of the controversy that was involved with that,” he said. “I knew the guy that was in charge (in King County) ... It wasn’t something that he did. It was a problem in how they have their elections department set up over there and the processes.”
He also saw the introduction of personal computers into the office. When Varney started, the accounting department used terminals connected to a mainframe.
“I think it makes it a lot easier as long as everything is running,” he said. “It’s one way, in this office, that I’ve been able to handle the increased workload without hiring any more people ... We’re still one person less than when I took over.”
Varney said he’s excited about retiring to 20 acres of land he has in Kittitas County.
“That will keep me busy, taking care of that, being the gentleman farmer,” he said. “I’ll miss working with the people. We have good people working here ... That is what I’ll probably miss the most.”
He expects his successor, Dave Firebaugh, will do a good job when he takes over the position. Firebaugh is presently the chief accountant for the county.
“He’s been working here for about five or six years. It’s good to have somebody that’s been in the office and knows what is going on, rather than somebody from the outside who comes in and doesn’t know anything about it.”