Even before the polls closed yesterday, it was primarily a given that Nikki Gottschall would be elected as the next Lycoming County Controller.

Gottschall has been serving as acting controller since the resignation of Krista Rogers earlier this year. She has also been serving during a time when there have been questions about the financial health of the county.

“It’s definitely my top priority, along with getting our financial statements up to date. So we are on track to get the 2024 financials done by the end of December of 2025 this year, and then we’ll head right into 2025 financials…about April of 2026,” she said.

Typically the financials are closed out at the end of each year and then an audit and the financial statements are done around April or May of the following year because they are due on June 30. This year they are running a bit late because of some key county employees who left, Gottschall explained.

“Things got behind, so we are catching up,” she said.

Another priority she feels is to make sure that the “processes within our office are efficient and effective.”

“I want to implement a new financial software. However, they’re very expensive, so that may need to be deferred. I’m not sure about that yet. We’re looking at expanding our audits to coincide with some of the accounting here in the office,” she said.

“What our auditors are looking to do is dive deeper into the general fund and the financials from an internal audit perspective. Our external auditors do it now, but they would like to step into that and get a better understanding with that, and now that we have accounting within our office, they’ll be able to work closely with them,” she said.

Although questions about the county’s financial health seemed to just pop up suddenly, Gottschall said that’s really not the case.

“It hasn’t been a sudden thing. I think you’re hearing a lot more right now, because it’s budget season, and I don’t want to speak for financial management at all, but you know, we’re really into the budget right now, and that’s when you see this kind of worry,” she said.

“We have a grasp on what happened. Now it’s, how do we fix it? How do we get back out of this,” she said, adding that would be one of her top priorities.

Gottschall stressed that she wants people to know that she will be a full time controller.

“I am in the office every day and working very hard,” she said.

One thing that she is looking to do in the Controller’s Office is to have more community outreach.

“We are currently hosting a food drive until Nov. 24th. We are donating food collected to the Central PA Food Bank,” she said.