Attendance and accuracy seem to be the top two issues for former co-workers and Island County treasurer candidates Wanda Grone and Ana Maria Nuñez.

Grone, who was fired by Nuñez when she filed to run this summer, has criticized Nuñez’s leadership style and frequent absences over the past year.

“You have to discourage this finger-pointing attitude, you have to have consistent instructions … every employee should receive exactly the same type of treatment,” said Grone, who is running as a Republican, in a Thursday interview. “Everyone should be able to come in every day, know what they have to do, do their work and go home.”

Incumbent Democrat Nuñez said that while Grone was a good accountant, she had her own shortcomings.

“The impression has been given, and it’s very, very annoying, that my opponent was the perfect employee … that there were not issues in the office involving her job,” Nuñez said. “That is absolutely not true. Did she make mistakes? Yes, she did.”

Grone said she believes her own leadership style of consistent attendance and working closely with staff will serve Island County residents better.

“I like to lead by example, I would do the work and I was there every day,” Grone said. “When I left I had 140 hours of accumulated leave. That’s because I was there every day. I like going to work.”

Nuñez is unapologetic for the time she has missed over the past two years due to a family emergency, vacation and holidays.

Nuñez’ first four-year term has been riddled with errors within her office including clean water utility billing problems, tax statement formatting mistakes and a $1 million loss in county investments.

Between issues at work and illnesses in her family, Nuñez admits “this has not been a good year for me.”

However, she said she doesn’t believe her absences have affected her ability to run her office.

“These errors happened when I was sitting at my desk,” Nuñez said. “They didn’t happen when I was away … I am entitled to vacation like everyone and I’m not going to apologize for taking my vacation.”

Grone, who was also working in the treasurer’s office when these errors occurred, said she tried to advise Nuñez more than once to make different decisions but was ignored.

“She wanted to make decisions herself … you can only be a porcupine so many times,” Grone said. “I think she likes to have control. It’s not always consistent, that was part of my dissatisfaction.”

Grone said the $1 million investment loss last year was the result of a “rookie mistake” on Nuñez’s part.

Nuñez said the county’s portfolio is “at the mercy of the market” and that the two years prior to 2013, the county experienced market gains. Nuñez said that other municipalities had also experienced a loss last year so she “wasn’t standing alone.”

“So the prior two years when I had a fair market gain I had experience, but last year I lost experience?”, Nuñez argued.

Grone said she believes she would do a better job of investing the county’s assets, but Nuñez said she lacks the appropriate experience.

Claiming that Nuñez has been out of the office roughly 50 percent of the time, Grone said her strength will be showing up.

“The biggest thing is I intend to be there, I think that’s the biggest difference,” Grone said. “I think that’s a big responsibility for the elected official to be there. That’s the biggest problem that the office has.”

Nuñez said if re-elected she plans to restructure her office and place a manager over collections and a manager over investments to increase oversight. In addition, she said she hopes to improve communication in her office.

“I’m asking them to be more frank with me,” Nuñez said. “Don’t think you’re going to hurt my feelings if things aren’t running as smoothly as you think it could be. Because that doesn’t help anybody.”