Kersten comments on new role as county clerk

Recently appointed Hot Springs County Clerk Becky Kersten said her background in accounting gave her the preparation to fulfill her new role.

The county's previous Clerk Rose DeSeyn resigned this summer and the county commissioners appointed Kersten to fill the vacancy and finish DeSeyn's term. At that time, Kersten can run for the clerk's office in the election.

Kersten's prior occupation was working at Korewitz, Michel,Wright and Associates as an accountant. For four of those years, she was a bookkeeper and then the remaining thirteen years she did tax returns and financial statement audits.

Kersten said this experience gave her familiarity with the general ledger in budgeting. Also, in auditing, she gained much experience. Kersten audited payroll and budgets. She also did grant compliance and a whole realm of things. She and the firm have audited hospital districts, school districts, Hot Springs County and the Town of Thermopolis.

Regarding the kind of challenges in fulfilling those tasks, Kersten said, "You have to understand, for instance, payroll. So a lot of times in your audit processing, taking their records and you reconcile it to how it should be. If things don't work out, those are your challenges."

Regarding areas to grow in for Kersten, she said, "I definitely need to grow in the outer office where they do the recordings, the day-to-day processing recordings, the titles, the marriage licenses, you know, all of your land work. Because that's not a financial issue that's addressed in the audit.... although I don't know our specific system, I know how to run payroll because good payroll was something that I did as a bookkeeper and I did it for a couple of the other companies."

Kersten added, "I enjoy challenges. Challenges are good for me. Sitting down and starting to work on the abstract was exciting for me because it was, number one something I was familiar with, although I hadn't done this particular one yet, but it also pulled from my background. And as long as you can take something from everywhere you've ever been, I think it's positive. And I see that here. I see that I'm going to be able to use a lot of my different backgrounds. And it's just all exciting."

Kersten expressed excitement in doing something new. For her educational history, she got her associate's degree from Casper College. Then she worked in the oil industry for a portion of her time and then finished her bachelor's degree in accounting with the University of Phoenix Online in 2007. 

Kersten graduated from Hot Springs County High School in 1982.

Her father's family came to the area in about 1906 and her mother's family came in 1914.

Regarding possible upcoming changes for the clerk's office, Kersten said, "No, not one of my policies is to throw out new ideas. But I don't believe you should make any immediate changes, because oftentimes something that doesn't make sense to you will six months down the road. So I like to truly familiarize myself with things and then we can start talking about whether we need to implement correction changes."

Kersten added, "I think that's a waste of time to come in and change everything and upset everybody's cart. And like I said, oftentimes you find out there's a reason something's been done the way it has been, and sometimes there's not. And that's something that myself and the people here in the office can sit down and visit about together."