John McGauley has served as Allen County Recorder since 2007 and is seeking his second term in 2010.

A resident of Allen County for nearly 30 years, McGauley is a graduate of Ball State University and R. Nelson Snider High School in Fort Wayne. McGauley, 41, has been married to Elissa McGauley since 1992 and has a daughter, Laurel.

Throughout his career, McGauley’s endeavors have focused on delivering information to the public, often in innovative ways that have broken new ground and made important resources more accessible to the public. After graduating from Ball State, McGauley worked as a print journalist for newspapers in Muncie and Fort Wayne News-Sentinel.  He has also written for other local, state and national publications.

From 1998 until 2007, McGauley served in various communication roles in the private and public sectors, including city and county governments.

Before his election as Recorder, served as Allen County Government’s Director of Public Information. In that capacity, McGauley was directly responsible for developing and managing the implementation of important projects that brought government closer to the citizens of Allen County

McGauley managed the first successful effort to broadcast Allen County meetings and informational programming on cable television.  In addition, he directed efforts to launch Allen County Government’s first interactive Internet site and oversaw other advances in the county’s ability to deliver information and services to citizens anywhere and any time. 

As Allen County Recorder, McGauley has focused on making the office less costly and more accessible to its customers, often through cutting-edge uses of technology. In 2009, McGauley received the Association of Indiana Counties’ “County Achievement Award” for the development of a Neighborhood Resource Center web site which delivers hard-to-find information, including searchable access to neighborhood covenants, to property owners.

McGauley has overseen the first-ever wide-reaching expansion extension of Allen County Recorder’s Office services onto the Internet. Under his leadership, more than 40 years worth of records have been made available online, a resource that grows on a weekly basis. In 2008, Allen County became the first county in Indiana to begin recording documents via the web, allowing customers to conduct important business without ever having to leave the office.

McGauley also oversaw the implementation of an automated alert system designed to protect Allen County from property fraud, a new form of identity crime. Allen County was the first county in Indiana to enact that service as well.

With a new focus on customer service under McGauley’s leadership, the Recorder’s Office has launched initiatives that are hard to find elsewhere in local government, such as a quarterly user group meeting that allows customers to have a direct say in how the office functions. Document handling turnaround times have dropped from 8-10 weeks to as little as one day.

Because of the success of initiatives like these, McGauley has been asked to write articles for industry publications and to serve as a speaker at meetings throughout Indiana and Illinois.

At the same time the Recorder’s Office has expanded its usefulness to customers, its has learned to do more with less in difficult economic times. Under McGauley’s leadership, the Recorder’s Office has reduced staffing by 25 percent and reduced its use of property tax dollars by 60 percent.

McGauley serves as a member of the Indiana Recorder’s Association’s Legislative Committee. Closer to home, he is chairman of the Allen County Public Records Commission and a member of the boards of Science Central, Three Rivers Montessori School and the Allen County Purdue Cooperative Extension Service.

McGauley is running for re-election as Allen County Recorder in 2010 because he believes that further advances can be made in the ways in which local government provides services and information to the taxpayers.

His goals for a second term include a dramatic expansion of online record availability, increasing the ability of customers to record documents online, making it simpler and faster for users to access records in the office and further reducing the time required to process recordings.

“We have worked hard to make the Recorder’s Office an example of local government innovation through smart uses of technology and by streamlining the way we work,“ McGauley said. “We have led the state in redefining the way a Recorder’s Office can do business. Now it’s time to elevate our standards even more.”

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