by Mari Radtke
Jaynee (Smith) Rushton began full time work for the City of Primghar as the City Clerk in early July. She began part time work and getting acquainted with the tools, software, procedures, rules, duties and tasks began a year ago. Being full time for just over 2 weeks, she’s is still getting the feel for things.
The Primghar office is fully staffed for the first time since August 2023.
Jaynee was born and raised in Primghar. After college she took a Kindergarten teacher position at Sioux Central, which she held for 2 years and where she met her now-husband, Bob. When a Kindergarten teacher position at South O’Brien came open, she quickly worked toward and was hired to the position. She held that position for 5 years.
She decided to come to the city clerk position after some council members reached out to her to see if she was interested. Rushton spoke about the factors in her life at that time that she weighed as she was determining if she was interested. Starting a family was high on her priority considerations. After discussion and consideration she determined that the scheduling and perks of working for the city over some of those same factors from her educational career was a better fit with family life. “Hopefully, I won’t have to take work home,” she said.
The learning curve for a city clerk is often, and by many, said to be a 3-year learning curve. At this point, Jaynee is working closely with Jessica Whitney, deputy clerk and assistant clerk Darcy DeBoer. She and Jessica attended training in Des Moines for city management and the budgeting process. She said, “There will be more training on the budget process. [Correct] Coding and the massive size of a budget is a lot of learning.” The training was a couple of days and she said, “I wish I had more work experience before the training. So many things were new.” She added that Jessica also attended and had a deeper understanding at that time because of the job she had been performing. Monthly and annual reports have to be learned. “I started with a new fiscal year. That is good. Learning some of the reports, changing files for the new year helps. I never would have known how many reports there are, but I am confident I will learn them,” Rushton shared. “As we get organized we can look back at examples and know what it is, how it was done and how we use it and file it.”
Looking forward besides the tasks of the job, Jaynee is looking at the relationship between the city and its constituents. She said, “I feel that supporting the town is important. I really want to improve the relationships with the businesses, supporting ideas of businesses, groups and organizations. I want to build a welcoming environment for all staff, committee members and the community.”
Jaynee and Bob welcomed a daughter, Kinlee in April.