Jenn Kaaoush

While I serve on Town Council now, my operational finance experience was built long before municipal government. As a CEO and as a diplomat and department head overseas in Jordan and Qatar, I managed complex budgets, contracts, staffing, and operations in high-stakes environments where financial decisions had real-world consequences. My municipal experience gave me direct insight into how government impacts residents day to day, but the financial leadership I bring comes from years of executive management and operational finance outside government systems — and I think that combination aligns well with the Treasurer's role, which requires both strong financial stewardship and an understanding of how those decisions affect real people, especially during instability and crisis.

When I saw financial harm coming to my community after the Marshall Fire, I didn't just talk about it — I went to Washington to help fix it. I worked alongside residents, attorneys, and lawmakers to help pass a federal wildfire tax bill so survivors would not be taxed on recovery payments. Good public service means identifying harm early and stepping in before everyday people are forced into those fights. While the Treasurer does not create tax policy, I believe the office should play a much stronger role in protecting vulnerable residents through data-driven outreach and prevention. The Treasurer's Office should be tracking foreclosure trends, delinquency patterns, and areas experiencing financial stress — building partnerships with housing organizations, lenders, nonprofits, and financial literacy programs to intervene earlier and keep people housed. I see the office as not just managing money, but using information and relationships to help prevent people from falling into crisis in the first place.

This is actually what prompted me to look more deeply at the Treasurer role before deciding to run. I became concerned that Boulder County could become a target for political retaliation from the federal government. The Treasurer cannot control federal policy, but the office has a responsibility to think strategically about protecting public resources and reducing unnecessary exposure to instability. I think the Treasurer should be constantly evaluating the safety and resilience of county investments, and we should explore whether more public dollars can be responsibly invested locally through Colorado-based financial institutions, community banks, and credit unions. The Treasurer's Office should also act as an early warning system — whether it's federal funding volatility, insurance market instability, layoffs, or foreclosure trends, the office has access to financial indicators that can help local governments and residents prepare.

One of the biggest opportunities in the Treasurer's Office is public education and transparency. Most people only hear about the Treasurer when something has already gone wrong — a foreclosure or delinquent taxes. By then, the harm is already occurring. In my Council role on the Finance Committee, I started outreach called 'What Do Things Actually Cost?' because I realized many residents had no frame of reference for the real costs of infrastructure and capital projects. The Treasurer also has an important responsibility to act as an early warning system — because the office is so closely connected to the movement of public funds, it often has one of the clearest views into what is actually happening in neighborhoods before it becomes obvious elsewhere.