Twenty-six years after being appointed to manage local governments’ financial systems, Clark County Treasurer Doug Lasher is seeking an eighth and possibly final term.

“As long as you have the passion and excitement for what you’re doing, you ought to keep on doing it, up to the point where you’re not producing more,” the Lake Shore Democrat said Tuesday.

Within a few years, Lasher said, he hopes to eliminate paper tax bills and conduct all transactions on the county’s Web site, saving the county perhaps 75 cents per tax-related mailing.

“We’re the largest bank in town, in terms of number of accounts,” Lasher said. “There are 165,000.”

A longtime Democratic Party activist like his father before him, Lasher was appointed by county commissioners in 1984 and hasn’t been opposed for the job since the first of the seven re-election campaigns that followed.

Lasher, who turns 61 Wednesday, said that by the end of 2010, he’ll have accomplished all five goals he set for the office when he ran for his current term, in 2006:

• Taxes, fees and assessments now appear on a single statement.

• Taxpayers can pay by phone.

• Real estate excise taxes can be processed and paid online.

• A new debt management system tracks the debt and bond issues of the county and its various taxing districts.

• His staff is cross-trained with the county assessor’s.

In the long term, Lasher said, he thinks Washington should move toward centralizing many of the duties of county treasurers’ offices, much like Washington does with its school districts.

However, he opposes proposals to convert offices such as his to appointed positions, saying the treasurer’s office must serve other local governments without fear or favor. Being an employee of commissioners would change that, he said.

Clark County’s treasurer makes $93,313 annually, managing a $4.2 million budget, 25½ employees and a $440 million investment portfolio.

His greatest accomplishment in office, he said, was the 1999 creation of a separate investment pool for county-managed funds. The county’s fund, he said, took advantage of the high cash flow of local government to earn $26 million more for local taxpayers than if they’d put their money in the state investment pool, which keeps money in shorter-run investments.

Lasher holds a bachelor’s degree and a master of public administration, both from Lewis & Clark College.

He eats the same breakfast every day: oatmeal, usually with blueberries and occasionally with raisins. And he’s done extensive research into the number of incumbent county treasurers who have been defeated in their re-election bids at any point in Washington history: by his count, two.

Lasher said he isn’t sure, if he wins Nov. 2, whether this will be his last term. It’d depend on his health and his interests in four years, he said.

“Right now, this rocks my boat,” Lasher said. “It makes things exciting for me.”

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