Betsy Schaffer easily won the race for the Santa Barbara County auditor-controller position Tuesday night, according to semi-official results from the county Elections Office.
Schaffer, the assistant auditor-controller, and county Investment Officer Jennifer Christensen battled to fill the open seat.
With all precincts reporting, Schaffer had 57.3 percent of the vote, while Christensen trailed with 42.3 percent.
Former Auditor-Controller Bob Geis retired before the end of his term, and the appointed replacement, Theo Fallati, decided not to run for the office.
During the campaign for the seat, Christensen and Schaffer accused each other of not being right for the job.
Christensen made conflict-of-interest allegations toward Schaffer, and Schaffer’s campaign stated that Christensen is not qualified to hold the post since she is not a certified public accountant.
Votes % Betsy Schaffer 27,883 57.3 Jennifer Christensen 20,577 42.3
Christensen criticized Schaffer’s involvement with Simpler Systems, a software company that received more than $1 million in county contracts between 2005 and 2016.
Schaffer was married to Rick Schaffer, the owner of Simpler Systems, for part of that period, and also worked in various jobs for the county.
Christensen pointed to all of those ties as evidence of a cozy relationship between Schaffer and the county, and why Schaffer wasn’t fit to hold the position.
Schaffer said she held no decision-making power either with the county or Simpler Systems.
In response to Christensen airing these conflict-of-interest allegations, many in Schaffer’s campaign pushed that Christensen was not qualified to serve as auditor-controller because she is not a certified public accountant.
Christensen, however, does meet the minimum standards for serving in the post.
— Noozhawk staff writer Joshua Molina can be reached at jmolina@noozhawk.com. Follow Noozhawk on Twitter: @noozhawk, @NoozhawkNews and @NoozhawkBiz. Connect with Noozhawk on Facebook.
