Experienced for Miami County……

John W. O’Brien has served as Miami County Recorder since 1996.

In that time he has been a member of the management team concept with all the elected officials, which has made Miami County government a model for the state of Ohio. He has provided sound fiscal management with an eye towards the future by using computer technology to make his office more efficient and easier to use.

Leadership for Miami County……

John W. O’Brien has served in many leadership positions in Miami County and Ohio.

Over the years he has been recognized as a person who accepts leadership and gets the job done. Whether through his leadership as Miami County Republican Chairman, Co-Chairman of the Ohio Recorders’ Assn Legislative Committee or his many volunteer positions of responsibility within our community O’Brien has a proven track record of leadership.

Committed to Miami County……

John W. O’Brien is committed to keep Miami County a great place to live, work and raise a family.

Since his parents moved his family to West Milton in 1971 O’Brien has been committed to Miami County. He understands the importance of keeping Miami County’s rural character and it’s commitment to agriculture. Nevertheless, planned, controlled growth is essential if we are to continue offer our children a safe place to grow and learn and provide quality employment opportunities within our county.

Miami County must focus on job retention and job development. As a graduate of the business school at Wright State University one of the first things they teach you in marketing is that it is easier to keep a happy customer than to convince someone who has not used your service to use it.

We must make sure our current businesses have all the resources they need to continue to provide our county with the current jobs we have. We must also use our assets to recruit new jobs of all kinds to give our citizens opportunities to better their own and their families lives. We can do this by working with all parts of the public and private sector in Miami county and our neighboring counties in each direction. I believe this can be done while keeping our counties rural and agricultural heritage.

Miami County has been fortunate over the past 16 years to have elected officials who have watched every tax dollar as if it were their own. I have been honored to be part of that management team since 1996 as your County Recorder. Since taking office, I have computerized every aspect of the office. Accounting, indexing and imaging of the documents. By introducing technology to the office we have made the office more efficient and easier for the public to use. This also enabled us to keep the budget of the office under control.

The year before I took office 17,000 documents were recorded. In 2003 we recorded over 35,000. We did not have to add any additional personnel to our full time staff to handle this increase. I attribute this to the technology we introduced to the office.

Because of this type of management, we have been able to keep our budgets balanced or close to it. Because of this Miami County has been able to keep a carryover balance of approximately 11 million dollars. All over the state counties are in financial trouble. Some have gone to being open half days or 4 day work weeks. We must continue to watch our finances and make sure we are stretching every dollar. I believe raising taxes is a last resort not an ultimate solution to government finances.

We must retain our hard working employees. For many years, Miami County government was considered a great place to work. Good work environment, decent pay and GREAT BENEFITS! Unfortunately, we can no longer say all of those things. We are still blessed with excellent work environments. However, because of market factors, our benefits have slipped due to rising health care cost and our pay has not kept pace with other governmental entities close by.

The commissioners must look into retaining our quality employees by looking at all options concerning our health care benefits and making sure Miami County is not a training ground for neighboring government entities. Back to management 101, it is more cost effective to keep good employees than to hire and train new ones.