Auditor-elect Doug Hoffer has selected Susan Mesner, a policy analyst from the state’s Tax Department, to become deputy state auditor.
“The Auditor’s office has a fine staff but we just signed an all-star to the team,” said Hoffer in a statement. “While her title will be deputy, I view Susan as a partner and am excited to be working with her.”
Mesner told VTDigger that her 12-year career as a tax economist has exposed her to broad policy discussions in the administration and the Legislature. It’s also allowed her to produce the detailed data analysis and tax estimates that legislators and other officials invariably require.
“I feel like I have a very good relationship with legislative leaders and legislative committees, particularly money committees,” Mesner said. “I’ve got a good sense of the administration, and a pretty good overall sense of the budget, but certainly have a lot more to learn.”
Mesner will take the place of Joe Juhasz, the current deputy state auditor under Republican state auditor Tom Salmon, who did not run for re-election this year.
Mesner said the move to the auditor’s office will allow her to work on broader policy issues compared with her previous role, in which she focused largely on tax estimates, statistics and data, both state and federal. She also testified regularly before the Legislature.
“I think it’ll allow me to look at all of state government, which will be a really wonderful challenge and extremely interesting,” she said.
The Tax Department has begun searching for her replacement. Mesner has filled the position since the job was first created by the Legislature in 2000.
Mesner is a member of the New England Public Policy Center Advisory Board, a research unit of the Federal Reserve Bank of Boston. Before becoming an economist, she worked as a freelance editor and book producer for eight years.
CORRECTION: Susan Mesner’s name is spelled “Mesner,” not “Messner” as originally stated.
