Allen Ruffles Appointed
Deputy County Treasurer
COOPERSTOWN – Allen Ruffles of Edmeston, Key Bank manager in Cooperstown, is joining the county Treasurer’s Office as deputy treasurer, Treasurer Dan Crowell announced this morning.
The position has been vacant for six years, since Carol McGovern was recruited as clerk of the county Board of Representatives.
Crowell, whose second four-year term expires at the end of next year, said “there’s a huge scope of activity” within the office, and his plan is to train Ruffles on a parallel track, so he is familiar with all the treasurer’s activities, and also give him specific duties.
The priorities Ruffles will immediately assist with include bed-tax collection and the early stages of developing the 2017 county budget. (This year, Crowell said he asked department heads to submit very preliminary estimates by the end of June, which are being firmed up by the end of this month for the first round of discussions. He likened it to a “soft opening.”)
For his part, Ruffles – he is a registered independent; Crowell is a Democrat – said he is looking forward to the challenges and “helping out the county where I grew up.”
Ruffles is an Edmeston native and graduated from Edmeston Central School in 2003. He has an associates degree in Liberal Arts from Broome Community College, a bachelor’s in education from SUNY Oneonta and a master’s in Geoscience from Mississippi State University.
He was a teacher at Laurens Central School for five years. Then, a licensed financial adviser, he was an agent for New York Life in Syracuse for three years. He has been the Key Bank manager in Cooperstown since early 2016.
Since returning to the county, he has joined the Otsego County Chamber Board, is a member of the county Young Professionals and is participating in the Otsego Leadership program right now.
Allen has been an Engineer in the New York Army National Guard since 2013.
He and wife Amy have two children, Cooper, 3, and Mia, 8. His parents are Allen Ruffles of Edmeston and Laura Bennett of Edmeston.