Former city council member Jim Montelongo is running for Peoria city treasurer.
Montelongo said he decided to run after former city treasurer Stephen Morris resigned from the position in May. He said his experience on the council and background in business give him the needed experience for the role.
“I think the things that really have helped me prepare for this position was, or is, understanding the city's budget, understanding all the long term challenges that we have going on, knowing my way around City Hall and all the different departments and what each of them do,” he said.
Montelongo served four years as an at-large member of the Peoria City Council and eight years as the fourth district council member. He ran for mayor against Mayor Rita Ali in 2021.
He said his main concern is the city’s growing pension obligation and he wants to work with the city council and city manager to find a solution.
Montelongo also said he met with current employees in the treasurer to identify areas of concern. He said one of the biggest is that they don’t currently have a centralized accounting system.
“When you have to take numbers from one system and put it in another one and you're having to type those in, the chances for error increase quite a bit, and it slows them down quite a bit,” he said.
Montelongo said one of the first things he would do is try to get the funding to integrate those systems. He said he also wants to release reports from the department to the public.
“Another piece that would be really important is to put out a quarterly type of statement that the people can see, build it so that they can read it, because this is accounting stuff,” he said. “And certainly sometimes it made my eyes gloss over being a city councilman seeing accounting numbers, whether it's cash or accrual, but I want to be able to sum it up into layman's terms, so they can understand what the city's financial position is.”
Asya Washum, former chief financial officer for the Peoria Citizens Committee for Economic Opportunity, and Brooke Petty Sommerville, chief deputy in the Peoria County Clerk’s office, are also running for the position.
The primary election is February 25.
