Sheriff's Office Senior Accounting Specialist

Full Job Description

Advance your accounting career and join the Sheriff's Office as a Senior Accounting Specialist!

Starting salary up to $37.67/hour ($78,621/year) and a competitive total compensation package!*

About the Position

Bring your fiscal knowledge and experience to the Sheriff's Office and join the team as a Senior Accounting Specialist. As a Sheriff's Office Senior Accounting Specialist, you will play a vital role in reconciling the department's internal financial records, using the County Enterprise Financial System and Civil Case Management System. In addition, you will:

• Perform monthly bank reconciliations and reconcile internal financial records with County systems
• Post payments and prepare deposits in a timely and accurate manner
• Prepare invoices, process journal vouchers, and follow up on part-due accounts as needed
• Coordinate travel arrangements for staff members attending trainings, at times including bookings and logistics
• Process travel reimbursements, following County of Sonoma policies and procedures
• Reconcile monthly Cal-Card statements for the Sheriff's Office staff
• Ensure timely and accurate processing for all transactions
• Be a team player and support other Senior Account Clerks in the department as needed

As the ideal candidate for this position, you will possess strong attention to detail, problem-solving skills, and many of the following:

• The ability to work professionally in a law enforcement environment while supporting the mission, vision, and values of the Sheriff's Office
• Excellent communication skills, with the ability to communicate professionally with staff of all levels
• An intellectual curiosity with an aptitude for working with numbers and detail-oriented tasks
• A commitment to fostering and contributing to a supportive and collaborative work environment
• Interest in public service and the accounting fields is a plus in this role
• Strong organizational and time management skills
• The ability to work independently as well as collaboratively
• Experience with Oracle's PeopleSoft Enterprise Financial software and fund accounting
• Experience with Microsoft Office applications

About the Sheriff's Office

Serving the community since 1850, the Sonoma County Sheriff's Office employs over 650 employees to protect and secure the half-million residents within the 1,768 square miles of Sonoma County. With more than 30 different highly trained and specialized units, you can be confident that a career with the Sonoma County Sheriff's Office will be anything but monotonous.

The Sheriff's Office policy is that all employees, civilian and law enforcement, are required to successfully complete a thorough background investigation prior to employment. This policy is imperative in order to keep the Sheriff's Office employees and the public safe, and to maintain high standards in the law enforcement and detention community. For more details, see the background investigation section of this job announcement.

What We Offer

Working at the County of Sonoma offers expansive opportunities for growth and development, the ability to be a part of a challenging and rewarding work environment, and the satisfaction of knowing you're working to better our communities.

You can also look forward to flexible work arrangements and excellent benefits* including:

• Salary Advancement - A salary increase after 1,040 hours (6 months when working full-time) for good work performance; eligibility for a salary increase for good performance every year thereafter, until reaching the top of the salary range
• Paid Time Off - Competitive vacation and sick leave accruals, 12 paid holidays, and an additional 8 floating holiday hours per year
• County Paid Health Premium Contributions - 100% premium contribution for the majority of employee-only and employee + family health plan options
• Post-Retirement Health Reimbursement Arrangement - County contributions to help fund post-retirement health insurance/benefits
• Retirement - A pension fully integrated with Social Security
• Paid Parental Leave - May be eligible for up to 8 weeks (320 hours) after 12 months of County employment
• Additional Benefits - Excellent dental, vision, disability, life insurance, employee assistance program, professional development, and more
• Student Loan Debt Relief - County employees may be eligible for Public Service Loan Forgiveness through the U.S. Department of Education

*Salary is negotiable within the established range. Benefits described herein do not represent a contract and may be changed without notice.

Additional information can be found in the Service Employees International Union Local 1021 Memorandum Of Understanding (SEIU MOU) and our Employee Benefits Directory.

This recruitment is being conducted to fill a Sheriff's Office Senior Accounting Specialist position.

This employment list may also be used to fill future full-time, part-time, or extra-help (temporary) positions as they occur during the active status of the list.

Qualified County employees who wish to be considered for future positions should consider applying to this recruitment. The Civil Service title for this position is Senior Account Clerk.

Application submissions require the Supplemental Questionnaire to be completed.

Requirements

Experience and Education: Any combination of education, training, and experience which would likely provide the required knowledge and abilities.

Normally, this would include completion of 12 semester units or 16 quarter units in accounting, record keeping, business math, or a closely related field; and one year of responsible full-time experience which includes the review, processing, and maintenance of fiscal transactions and accounts, or statistical data and records.

OR

Some coursework in accounting, record keeping, business math, or a closely related field, and two years of increasingly responsible full-time experience which includes the review, processing, and maintenance of fiscal transactions and accounts, or statistical data and records.

License: Possession of a valid driver's license at the appropriate level including special endorsements, as required by the State of California, may be required depending upon assignment to perform the essential job functions of the position.

The position advertised on this announcement does not require possession of a valid California Driver’s License.

Qualifications

Considerable knowledge of: methods, practices, and terminology used in financial and statistical clerical work, including working knowledge of costs and budgetary accounting principles, and double entry bookkeeping; government and departmental policies, regulations, and procedures in order to satisfactorily perform assigned account or statistical record keeping functions, resolve the related problems, or assess acceptability of work performance and procedures; department services, organization, and functions to proficiently plan, prioritize, coordinate, implement, direct, review, and perform work assigned to a clerical accounting section.

Working knowledge of: basic arithmetic to include addition, subtraction, multiplication, and division of whole numbers, fractions, decimals, and derivatives in order to count, calculate, balance, check, and adjust fiscal and/or statistical data; modern office methods and procedures; database, spreadsheet, and word processing applications.

Ability to: exercise judgment and technical skill in performing assigned duties without direct supervision; work with tabular detail such as codes, figures, and numbers; set up and revise account or statistical record keeping procedures and records; review, code, post, adjust, and summarize fiscal transactions or statistical data; maintain and reconcile control records; prepare final reports and statements; oversee the maintenance of financial and statistical records, and act as a subject matter resource to other workers; provide lead direction to other clerical accounting staff; make arithmetic computations rapidly and accurately; use and understand common database, spreadsheet, and word processing applications; transcribe data and record information neatly and legibly; establish and maintain effective working relationships with coworkers and the general public; operate office equipment such as adding machines, calculators, and computers in order to post, balance, summarize, and adjust data; type accurately.

Additional Information

• Your application information and your responses to the supplemental questions are evaluated and taken into consideration throughout the entire selection process.
• You should list all employers and positions held within the last ten years in the work history section of your application. Be as thorough as possible when responding to the supplemental questions.
• You may include history beyond ten years if related to the position for which you are applying. If you held multiple positions with one employer, list out each position separately.
• Failure to follow these instructions may impact your competitiveness in this process or may result in disqualification.

Please visit Getting a Job with the County of Sonoma to review more detailed information about the hiring process, including the application process, examination steps, and department selection process.

Application submissions require the Supplemental Questionnaire be completed.

Responses to supplemental questions will be scored using position-specific criteria.

Please provide specific and detailed responses of a reasonable length to allow for a thorough assessment of your qualifications.

Responses that state, "See Resume" or "See Application" may be considered insufficient and therefore may not be scored.

The selection procedure will consist of the following examination:

An Application and Supplemental Questionnaire Appraisal Examination (weight 100%) will be conducted to evaluate each applicant's application and supplemental questionnaire for satisfaction of minimum qualifications (pass/not pass); and for educational coursework, training, experience, knowledge, and abilities which relate to this position.

Personally identifiable information (PII) is removed from the standard application fields and applicable attachments.

This PII blind screening practice redacts a candidate’s personal information that could potentially influence or bias the scoring process.

Personal information includes the applicant’s name, former last name, address, phone number, email, driver's license number, school name, education start and end dates, age, date of birth, gender, and race.

This PII blind screening practice helps contribute to a fair and equitable examination process.

Each applicant will be evaluated based on the following criteria:

• Relevance of work history, related experience, and achieved level of education and/or training as described in the application and responses to the supplemental questions.

Candidates demonstrating possession of the minimum qualifications will be placed on an employment list in order of most qualified to least qualified based on the achieved score received in the Application and Supplemental Questionnaire Appraisal Examination which evaluates the education, training, experience, skills, knowledge, abilities, and other qualifications that you demonstrate in your application and/or response to the supplemental questionnaire.

Please be aware that resumes and cover letters are not typically evaluated in the Application and Supplemental Questionnaire Appraisal Examination.

Scores may be adjusted based on such factors as the number of candidates, anticipated vacancies, past practice, and natural breaks in the scores achieved by this group of candidates.

Additional Information

Being part of the Sheriff's Office and being expected to keep the public safe requires a thorough background investigation process.

This process includes an assessment of prior work history, verifying educational experiences, court reports, public records searches, and understanding past patterns relating to drug usage, financial patterns, etc.

This entails gathering a significant amount of information from job candidates and speaking to former employers, friends, family members, etc.

Polygraphs, drug tests, and medical and physical examinations are also part of this process. Candidates must be honest and forthcoming about information that may arise during the background process.

Deception during any portion of this process is grounds for disqualification, even after employment. This process can take anywhere from 3-5 months.

Many factors are taken into consideration and one should not assume a credit issue or prior drug use is automatically disqualifying.

Candidates will be given the opportunity to present mitigating information they feel should be considered.

You are encouraged to be as responsive as possible while this process is taking place to help expedite the timeline, and we encourage you to stay patient and interested in this great career opportunity while this process is taking place.

You may also review the Job Classification Screening Schedule to determine the requirements for this position.

Please read the Sheriff's Office Pre-Employment Drug Use Guidelines for further information.

How to Apply

Applications are accepted online at www.yourpath2sonomacounty.org. Paper applications may be submitted by person, fax (707-565-3770), email, or through the mail.

All applications and appropriate supplemental information as outlined in the job bulletin must be received by the time and date specified on the first page of this job announcement.

Applications received after the recruitment closes will not be accepted.

The County of Sonoma values diversity and is dedicated to creating a workplace environment that provides individuals with a sense of belonging.

We are committed to having a diverse workforce that is representative of the communities we serve.

The County is proud to be an Equal Opportunity Employer where all aspects of employment are based on merit, competence, performance, and business need.

HR Analyst: KK

HR Technician: VH