Recently retired Piercefield town clerk reflects on the job

Piercefield Town Supervisor Neil Pickering recently presented retiring Town Clerk Don Mauer with a plaque of appreciation for his many years of dedicated service to the Town of Piercefield. (photo provided)

by Rich Rosentreter

Don Mauer’s last day as the Piercefield town clerk was Friday, February 19 and his replacement has officially taken over the post – but the former clerk took time to reflect upon the job he’s been doing for the past 13 years.

“I’ll be seventy years old this year, so I figured it’s time to retire,” Mr. Mauer told the Free Press in a recent interview.

Mr. Mauer started his job as town clerk in 2008 after seeing an advertisement in the local newspaper, and he decided to apply since he needed some type of work after moving to the area full-time from the Rochester area. Although the clerk post is typically one determined by an election, he explained that the person who was elected had health issues and could not fulfill the duties of the job, therefore the town was forced to advertise for the position. He was eventually interviewed by the town board and was appointed, and after that has run for the position unopposed for the two-year position.

“It was about the time my wife and I were moving up from Rochester for the second time,” he said, joking that he applied for the clerk job out of desperation. Mr. Mauer said he has a background in engineering and there are not too many jobs in that field up here. His story is one that is familiar to so many people who decide to live in the area but need to find several means of income to survive.

“When I came up for the second time, I figured I had to be a chameleon and take whatever is out there. I also had my own painting and wallpapering business and I knew that wasn’t going to be enough,” he said, adding his wife had a position at the school library. “I took this on as a part-time job. I also took a job at Boulevard Wine and Spirits. With those three jobs and my wife working, we were able to make ends meet. And we’ve been up here ever since.”

“I always say you have to be a chameleon, you have to be able to do all kinds of things in order to make ends meet up here. My background is in math actually. Taking care of the financial aspects and keeping tracking the details of the job and stuff like that was a natural for me,” Mr. Mauer said. “The job itself wasn’t difficult, but there was a myriad of details to keep track of in the position.”

Duties

The duties of Piercefield town clerk encompass four official capacities: town clerk, tax collector, registrar of vital statistics and records management officer. Mr. Mauer said his background in math has been helpful to him when it comes to his job.

“There’s several financial things to deal with, the tax collection is one, sometimes people pay in cash and other times they pay by check or money order. Some use the payment installment plan and you have to keep track of everything. The county issues a warrant to collect and at the end you have to account for every penny. You have to show them how much you collected and how much you haven’t collected and any penalties you’ve collected for late payments. You have to keep track of all those numbers, and then of course it gets audited by the (town) board every year as well,” he said. “There’s a lot more to it than people are aware of. There’s a lot involved and I couldn’t begin to go through all the details.”

Mr. Mauer did outline just some of the particulars of the town clerk's job.

“Preparing for board meetings, preparing the minutes and putting it up on the website, taking care of all the resolutions and the peripheral duties that result from that – compiling local laws with New York State. As far as the registrar is concerned, taking care of death registrations, death certificates, marriage licenses, all of that. Knowing which information is public and which is not available to the public is also tricky. There’s a lot to learn about what’s private and what’s public,” he said, adding there is a lot under the clerk umbrella. “The town clerk is pretty much the first line of defense as far as the public is concerned. People call the town hall and it’s the town clerk that answers the phone. Sometimes it’s something that the clerk can handle but sometimes it’s something that needs to be funneled off to the town bookkeeper or town supervisor or highway superintendent. There are reports to file with the state or county on a monthly or yearly basis. You just have to keep track of all these things, be proactive and know what’s coming down the line – and do things on time.”

“I’ve been feverishly training Christielee Geiger as my replacement, and just when she thinks she’s got a handle on it, I throw a monkey wrench into it and say ‘By the way, here’s some more details for you.’ But I’ll be working with her. I won’t be continuing with any official capacity, but I’ll be mentoring Christielee, at least for the course of the year for the different aspects of the job that we have to deal with. It’s just that there are so many details, it’s a real challenge – for anyone.”

Challenges and rewards

Mr. Mauer said the town clerk job has several challenges, and one in particular is a relatively new one.

“One of the challenges has to do with the dog licensing. It used to be that New York State monitored that. They kept track of whenever someone’s dog license was due and send them a notice, then the town folk would come up and renew their dog license with me. But in 2011, the state dumped that whole burden onto the town clerk. So not only do we have to collect the fees, we have to keep track of when the licenses become due and notify all the dog owners. It was up to us to generate the forms and all that and keep track of the whole collection, we still have to pay money to the state,” he said. “It’s like you still have to send us the money, but we’re not going to manage the program anymore. It was kind of a slap in the face.”

“One thing that people may not understand is the hours that the office is open to the public, that’s not necessarily the job. That’s just the hours the office is open to the public, that’s not the hours the clerks has on the job, and that’s just you have to do what needs to get done,” he added.

But there have been some rewarding experiences for Mr. Mauer as well.

“Getting to know the people of the town and demographics and all that, that’s definitely a plus. It’s rewarding to be able to help people and answer their questions and solve their problems,” he said, then explained one example. “Somebody may call and say they need a copy of their birth certificate because they need a passport, of course you can’t do that kind of thing over the phone for security reasons. You have to send an application and they have to prove their identity.”

After that he would have to conduct a search to see if there is a record of their birth in the town, then follow though to certify that record exists and eventually create paperwork and put the town seal on it to make it official.

“I tell them this is a legal document and they can use as proof of being born in the town of Piercefield,” he said. “That’s just one example. Being able to satisfy the needs of the people, that’s the most rewarding part of the job I think.”

Small town, big hat

“We have to perform all the same duties as anyone in a big town, and actually even more because a small town can’t really afford the personnel for different departments that a big town does, so you have to wear several different hats,” he said, and gave the transfer station as an example.

“We don’t have a separate department for the transfer station. The highway department is in charge of the nuts and bolts of it, transporting the garbage to the Tupper Lake transfer station. When it comes down to managing the fees, that money comes down through the town clerk. I wind up going to get all the receipts and preparing the documents for the transfer station annual report – things of that nature,” he said. “We also don’t have a water department like a big town might have. It’s not just a town clerk job that the town clerk does.”

Mr. Mauer was asked how long it took to learn the job, and he explained that it is a job that one never stops learning while doing.

“You know, every year something else comes up that you never saw before. It’s a continuous learning process and I’m sure that town clerks that have been doing this job for twenty or thirty years will tell you the same thing. If you talk to Laurie Fuller (town clerk) in Tupper Lake, and you see if she doesn’t wind up seeing new things every year,” he said. “You’re always on your toes that’s for sure. Something would come in the mail and you say ‘What in the world is this?’ There are always surprises. And there are always interruptions. That’s just the nature of it. It’s an elected position, so basically you’re on call 24-7. You do what needs to get done when it needs to get done and just don’t count the hours.”

Now that he is leaving the post, he said he looks forward to the free time.

“I really don’t expect to miss it much. If I miss anything, it’s going to be the interactions with the town folk because I probably won’t see as many as often as I would being the town clerk. Even a little small-town clerk it’s surprising how much interaction you have with the local people – maybe even more so in a bigger town or in the county. You see the same people over and over again where the county clerk is seeing different people all the time and you don’t get time to establish any kind of relationship them. Having people come in and recognize them year after year and get to carry on conversations, that would be the most rewarding part of the job and I’ll miss that,” he said, adding that he doesn’t really have any plans set. “There’s so much to do, not only hobbies, but things I’ve put off to go to work and it’s going to be a strange feeling knowing that for the first time in my life I’m the master of my own schedule now. It’s going to take some getting used to, although I’m sure my wife has some ideas.”

Mr. Mauer did have some final messages to town residents.

“Be kind to your elected and appointed officials. They’re working harder than you think they are. When I see what the other officials are doing too, anybody that works for the town, there’s a lot more that is involved than just the so-called prestige of holding the position. They are all seriously dedicated workers for the benefit of the town,” he said, adding that the town clerk position appears to be in good hands. “I think that Christielee appears to have all the capabilities. She’s a quick study and enthusiastic. I think she brings things to the job that I don’t just because she has a whole different background and approach to things. She’s perfectly capable, I wish her well and I hope she sticks with it.”