Boone County Treasurer Jenna Redel says she views her duties in the treasurer’s office as an extension of her career in public service.
Redel was the director of human resources and risk management for Boone County for nine years before being elected county treasurer in 2022. The county treasurer’s job is to invest the county’s assets and ensure that county entities can pay their bills.
Redel said she is running with the belief that the accountability and transparency of the county’s investments are crucial to ensuring that money allocated for the community is spent on the community.
Redel started her career as a hospital advocate for victims of sexual assault and domestic violence. After graduating college, Redel became a police officer for the University of Missouri. After five years of service and two as the university’s peer advisory counsel coordinator, she became an assistant Missouri attorney general, a job she held for six years.
“Not all who wander are lost,” said Cece Riley, Redel’s daughter, about her numerous job titles over the years. “It is a common hiking quote, but it applies to her work too. I call her the wander-woman.”
Riley expressed admiration for her mother’s ability to excel at many hobbies and jobs.
In her free time, Redel said she loves to explore Missouri’s State Park System with her daughter. Her office is decorated with canvases of photos taken during their trips.
When they were both asked to share a favorite memory together, they both recalled the same one: hiking and kayaking together at the Finger Lakes State Park.
Redel has also done a variety of charity work for the Women’s Center, LGBT Resource Center and Rape Crisis Center.
The one thing that all of her previous job positions have in common is the ability to “create real change and help people,” Redel said.
During her first term as treasurer, Redel said she believes she has continued this work through systemic changes.
Republican Dustin Stanton is running against Redel in November for the second time. Both candidates are promoting increased transparency and oversight in their campaigns, a priority that Redel has advocated for since stepping into her current role as treasurer.
“Last term, I was really running on integrity, transparency, kind of keeping things going as they were, and as I’ve learned more, my priorities are more,” Stanton said.
Investment Review Committee
Redel created an Investment Review Committee to oversee her investment choices. Before Redel took office, the treasurer had sole discretion on how to invest county funds.
“Money can be a corrupting force, especially when there is a lack of oversight and accountability,” Redel said.
Current members of the committee include Boone County Sheriff Dwayne Carey and County Counsel CJ Dykhouse. A member of Redel’s office staff, Alissa Marlow, serves as chief deputy and is a point of contact to distribute Redel’s records to the committee.
Redel said she picked people who have an obligation to the county due to their job position to ensure that she was managing the county’s finances correctly.
“I want them to know where the money goes down to the last penny,” Redel said. “Stealing is stealing. And stealing from your community ... letting roads deteriorate and seeing people get laid off all while enjoying self-enrichment is wrong.”
Redel said that even if she isn’t reelected, she hopes the changes she’s made will be maintained.
Sarah Catlin, her former campaign manager, said Redel requested that the commission create a policy mandating the next treasurer to continue to answer to the oversight committee. That policy has now been implemented.
“There will be transparency one way or another,” Catlin said.
Diversifying investments
When Redel took office, she said that the county’s current investment portfolio did not align with the county’s standards for diversity of investments, meaning the majority of the county’s investments were the same type.
“It is like putting all your eggs in one basket,” Redel said.
By choosing many different types of investments, the county can maintain stability and predictability in its cash flows and investment returns, even if one sector of the market experiences changes, Redel said.
Redel said that she was unable to diversify the investments immediately because the county would lose money by taking it out of its investments before they mature. Her strategy is to reinvest money from matured bonds into a wider variety of investments.
If reelected, she plans to be operating within the county’s investment standards by 2026.
Quarterly investment reports
Redel has also created quarterly reports, including raw investment data and explanations about what that data means, for her review committee, the county commission and the various county entities whose money the treasurer’s office manages.
“I think having the data there is an important part, but it shouldn’t be the only way you are communicating with people,” Redel said. “It feels like you are hiding behind the density of this stuff, and you are putting a lot of burden on whoever your audience is to process this.”
By providing an explanation of the data, she said it helps take some of this burden off of her clients.
Redel said even though there is no current official rule mandating quarterly reporting, she hopes to create an expectation of financial transparency among stakeholders. If future treasurers don’t provide quarterly reporting, stakeholders would wonder why and raise questions about investments, she said.
When Redel took office, she found no records of county spending, so she went back about 10 years charting the county’s monthly spending, Catlin said.
Redel often reemphasized that as a public servant, she wants to ensure that her community has access to the way its money is being spent, explained in a way that they can understand.
Generating earnings
Redel’s investments have made earnings of over $4 million for Boone County. Redel said that in order to make earnings for the county, she had to rethink the way that money was being invested.
“Previously, the county was investing excess funds into five-year investments regardless of when the money was needed,” Redel said. “This meant that a lot of (American Rescue Plan Act) funds received from 2021 to 2022 were invested in five-year bonds maturing from 2026 to 2027. This was problematic because the ARPA funds needed to be spent by the end of 2026, but the five-year bond investment meant the county wouldn’t have access to that money when it was needed.”
To help ensure that the county had access to money as needed and allocated in the budget, Redel said she increased short-term cash flow by investing in shorter-term bonds and only investing in longer three to five year bonds if there was still extra cash remaining.
“Jenna is as honest as the day is long,” Catlin said. “She would lose sleep to make sure whatever is happening is above board in her office. That is exactly the kind of person you need when they’re handling all the resources of the county.”
