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Theresa Kiernan
Theresa Kiernan is coming the end of her fourth term as the Southampton Town receiver of taxes, and after 16 years on the job, the Republican incumbent says she’s ready for another four.
“I love my job,” she says plainly, loves the customer service part of the job and loves the challenge of running a tight ship with a staff of two and a reliance on technology that wasn’t a big part of the job when she was first elected in 2007.
It’s the rare Southampton Town office, she says, where a person calls a number and speaks to a person instead of a machine. “They need the service, and they should get the service,” Kiernan says of local taxpayers who pay their property taxes through her office.
Kiernan grew up in Southampton and graduated from high school here in 1986. She worked in banking in New York City after graduating from Providence College and got her MBA at Fordham University before landing a job at the Bank of New York and then at the former Suffolk County National Bank.
The job is a particular one that doesn’t involve making policy or enacting legislation. “It’s all about experience,” she said, noting that over her years of service, she has been progressive-minded in enacting best practices at the receiver’s office and embraced technology — to an extent — “to make sure the payments are getting processed in a timely manner.”
Kiernan said she has resisted calls by the town’s IT managers to move her phone system onto the town’s phone tree — she’d rather continue to answer the calls in person, she said. There’s nothing to hide — it’s a very “open book office,” where no appointments are necessary. The Town Board approves her annual budget and personnel changes as she needs them, but as far as choosing vendors to process payments and banks to deposit them — those decisions are all hers to make.
The office is subject to regular audits by the town and Suffolk County “and you have to reconcile to the penny — there’s no room for funny business,” Kiernan said, “unless you take it all and go really far away,” she added with a laugh. “That’s not happening.”
