Tim Ryan, tryan@wolfrivermedia.com
Shawano County Finance Director Diane Rusch will retire next month after more than two decades with the county.
The county’s Administrative Committee will discuss refilling her position at a meeting Monday.
“It’s time to leave,” Rusch said.
Rusch said she has been looking to retire for the past couple of years, but wanted to see several finance department projects through to completion while staff changes and turnover sometimes left the department short-handed.
“I really didn’t want to leave these guys in a lurch,” Rusch said.
Rusch said the decision came with some anxiety.
“I really like what I’m doing,” she said. “I look at all the opportunities that the county has really given me to grow, to go and get more education, and to be able to do the job. So, it’s been pretty much mostly good. But the time comes.”
Rusch started with the county in June 1993 as comptroller, when finance was still part of the county clerk’s office.
“We created the finance department, which was a challenge,” Rusch said. “I enjoyed doing that,”
Finance became its own department in December 1994, providing services to each of the county’s other departments.
“We look at the departments as our customers, to do whatever we can with them, because their area of expertise is in their programs, but there’s still that financial piece of it that they need to do,” Rusch said. “I think that’s what I’m most proud of, what we’ve done in creating the finance department and our service to the departments.”
Rusch said her husband has already been retired for quite a few years and there are things they want to do, such as going to warmer climes for the winter, and catching up on the golfing and reading Rusch hasn’t always had the time for.
First will come a little rest.
“I’m just really tired right now,” Rusch said. “I always tell everybody, ‘The first thing I’m going to do is sleep ‘til I’m done.’”
Rusch will retire effective May 7.
Her current salary is “in the low-80s, about mid-range in the pay scale,” she said.