With the notion that the operations at the Jefferson County Circuit Clerk’s Office could use more streamlining, Mike Reuter has announced he will seek a third four-year term.
Reuter, a Republican, will run for his party’s nomination in the primary election in August, with the winners of the primary election squaring off in November.
Reuter, 54, of Imperial said he is driven to run again for the same reason he first ran in 2014.
“I want to continue to serve the people of Jefferson County,” he said. “I don’t think the job is done yet. There are more files to process.”
Reuter succeeded the late Howard Wagner, a Democrat who retired in 2014 after holding the office since 1986.
The circuit clerk maintains the records for the 23rd Judicial Circuit, including documents concerning criminal, civil and probate cases. The circuit clerk is paid $74,001 a year.
Reuter oversees a staff of 50 people, which is seven fewer than when he took office.
“The state (Office of State Court Administrators) makes the call on staffing,” he said. “Our numbers keep going up, and now we’re administering (municipal) court records for De Soto, Hillsboro and Festus, but I don’t understand why they say we don’t need as many people to do more work.”
He said in addition to the ongoing job of processing court records, he and his staff have been busy converting boxes and boxes of paper records going back decades into digital files.
Reuter said while his staff, like most other people, had issues related to COVID-19, months before the pandemic, he had put in place procedures for employees to work from home, so they were prepared in March 2020.
“It didn’t faze us at all,” he said. “We already had people working from home, so they knew how to do it. I wish I could say I had an intuition about COVID and prepared for it, but I can’t. We’ve just found that it improves morale if, say, someone has a doctor’s appointment, they can work from home that day and not have to take off an entire shift to make their appointment. Or if they’ve got a sick child. They take less sick leave.
“We find – and we’re still finding – that they get just as much work done at home as they would in the office, and they’re happier employees.”
If re-elected, Reuter said he would continue working to improve customer service.
“When I took over, I would get calls from the public that they were treated rudely or weren’t helped,” he said. “That’s no longer happening. The calls I get are from people thanking us for taking the time to listen to them, even if this isn’t the office they need to deal with.
“The people we deal with (in the court system) are often at a low point, or they’re very stressed, and our people have been trained to remember that,” he said.
Reuter also said he would push the General Assembly for raises for the office’s employees, whose salaries are determined by the state.
“I hope that what Gov. (Mike) Parson is proposing this session (pay increases for state employees) goes through. The state should make these jobs more competitive than working for Burger King or McDonald’s.”
He also said he would continue to work for a new county courthouse and jail.
“This was a building that was intended for county government offices, not a courthouse,” he said. “It’s old, it’s wearing out and it’s getting more and more expensive to fix the many problems here,” he said.
But his main motivations for seeking another term are his staff and the public it serves.
“I have a good staff,” he said. “I’d hate to see that change if I weren’t here. And I’m always excited about the chance to serve the community, which is what this job is about.”
Reuter, the husband of County Council member Renee Reuter (District 2, Imperial) who has made her own announcement that she intends to seek the 112th District seat in the state House of Representatives, noted that this is the first time they’ve run concurrent campaigns.
In the past, their four-year terms have always ended two years apart.
“It will be interesting how this works out,” he said. “We’ve always helped each other before, and we’re still going to. She’s running for a single district in the state, while my office is countywide, so we’ll figure out how that’s going to work.”
Mike Reuter, a former police officer and Jefferson County Sheriff’s deputy who served in the U.S. Army for eight years, graduated from Fox High School and has an associate degree from Jefferson College.
He also works nights and weekends as a reserve police officer for Pacific.
He and Renee have two adult children and a grandson.
Reuter said he has not heard of anyone else who might run against him in either party.
Filing for the August primary election runs from Feb. 22 through March 29.