‘I just loved it all:’ Reno County Clerk retires 

CAPTION: Donna Patton at her retirement party in the Reno County Courthouse Jan. 9. CREDIT SANDRA MILBURN/RENO COUNTY

By Emmie Boese

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After 33 years of service to Reno County, Donna Patton is officially retiring from the Reno County Clerk’s Office. 

Patton held the position of Reno County Clerk since Jan. 14, 2013. She started working in Reno County in 1991 in the tag office. She began working in the County Clerk’s office in April of 1998. Before becoming the county clerk, she held several positions in that office including secretary, payroll clerk and deputy county clerk. 

“I just loved it all,” Patton said. “I felt so humbled to have that job and honored to have that job and I think just getting to know every aspect of the office and getting to meet new people forge new friendships.” 

The County Clerk’s office handles all aspects of elections, accounts payable, board minutes for the Reno County Commission, balance to the treasurer’s books, provides RNR (Revenue Neutral Rate) notices and sends out budget information worksheets to all of the county’s taxing entities. 

“We’ve got about 85 (taxing entities) of those I think,” Patton said. “So those all have to be sent out and then if anybody goes over their RNR levy then that’s when we have to send out the RNR notices. Then we have to notify other counties and get information from other counties to get the tax roll ready to go and then we send that to the printers who in return you know send it out and bring it back. We take the annual reports. We get those from all of the taxing entities.” 

Patton said the work of the county clerk’s office is vital. Work that often goes behind the scenes. 

You know especially that we handle all of the elections,” Patton said. “We have to get all the board workers. We have over 200 board workers and we have to get all of those trained and ready to go and that takes a lot of behind-the-scenes work. It takes hours behind the scenes to get the budget information worksheets to the taxing entities and everything we do just takes time.” 

Patton said her favorite part about living and working in Hutchinson and the Reno County area for a little over three decades is the people. She also enjoys having close access to larger cities. 

“You know it doesn’t take that long to get to Wichita really,” Patton said. “Even Kansas City or Oklahoma City or anything like that so it’s really centrally located and easy to get around everything and there’s a lot to do around here.” 

Patton’s retirement plans include going to her grandkids’ games, traveling and spending some time at the bar she, her daughter and grandson bought in Nickerson. 

“I just want to thank the citizens for electing me you know for 12 years which would have been three terms so I was really humbled to have my job and so proud to work for Reno County. I love working for the county and I love the administrators we had and the department heads are so good to work with. All the employees are really good and easy to work with. Not just the department heads, all the employees are easy to work with so I really appreciated that.” 

Patton’s last day of work is on Monday, Jan. 13.