MY THREE COMMITMENTS
Balanced books are only the first step.
Straightforward access to public records should be just as solid. From property values to the county checkbook, facts people can find and use build better conversations and stronger communities.
01
CLEAR RECORDS
Public money tells a public story. I'll take our spending data out of a buried menu and put it on the front page with a plain-language guide for how to actually use it.
02
FAIR PROCESS
Right now, an investor using an LLC can sidestep rules a family can’t when buying a home. I’ll work with other auditors and state lawmakers to close that gap, so working families and people on fixed incomes aren’t playing by tougher rules than an investor down the street. You shouldn’t have to guess how your property value was set, or struggle to find out what to do if it looks wrong.
03
CONNECTED COMMUNITY
The best solutions come from connected community, not isolation. I believe in getting curious, convening neighbors, and finding answers together, our answers.
Meet Amy.
I have worked in real estate, credit union leadership, financial services, operations, compliance, nonprofits, and academic administration. Those roles gave me practical knowledge with money, property, records, rules, and the people who depend on them. I am thankful that my experience has given me a clear view of how the Auditor’s Office touches everyday life.
OUTSIDE THE OFFICE
Outside the office, I’m a grandmother. In all honesty, those sweet boys are the real reason I’m running. They deserve a world where we all try our hardest to build something incredible for them to grow up in. I am also a parent, including through birth, foster care, and adoption. I’m an artist too, and married to a family physician who practices Direct Primary Care. Turns out putting people first runs in the family. We live just outside Oxford on a cute little mini-farm, my happy place, where my pottery studio resides. We keep goats. Chickens and horses were part of the crew too, until a few years back, those were the good old days, and we’re still hoping for their return. Home also includes a dog and a cat who run the place more than we do.
WHY I’M RUNNING
01
Information should serve the people it belongs to.
I’ve helped lead a credit union, an institution built to serve people fairly rather than maximize profit for someone else. That’s the same instinct driving how I’d run the Auditor’s office: information should serve the people it belongs to, not sit hidden away for the benefit of whoever already knows how to find it.
02
I find real value in seeing myself as a redwood tree in a grove of other redwoods.
A redwood’s roots only reach five or six feet deep, but they spread up to a hundred feet wide, intertwining with the roots of the trees around it, sharing water, sharing strength, literally holding each other up through storms. That’s the kind of leadership I actually believe in, not standing over a room, but rooted in it, alongside everyone else, needing the grove as much as the grove needs me, in this campaign and everywhere else.
03
Not much changes because one person cares.
It changes when enough people are informed, connected, and willing to act, together. Too much of politics has become a spectator sport, rewarding the brash and the slick-tongued, treating community members as voters to be persuaded instead of citizens with agency. This campaign talks differently, starting now, not after an election. hat's why I'm running for Butler County Auditor, not because I have all the answers, but because I trust we'll find them together.
AMY HINES
TRUE TALK
What the Auditor actually does.
The Auditor’s office is in charge of issuing dog licenses.
True talk. I absolutely love that, a real reminder that this numbers-oriented office touches people’s lives in real ways. (Dog people: follow me on Instagram as dog content is coming soon.)
The bigger responsibilities are more serious.
The Auditor sets property values, calculates the tax bills built on those values, and serves as the county’s Chief Fiscal Officer, the county’s top financial record-keeper.
The office has real tools to push for something better.
It’s worth knowing that the Auditor’s office doesn’t make the laws that govern any of this. But it carries real voice and influence over what stories get told and how. Sometimes, the job is simply to put accurate, legible facts in front of the public, so they can tell the story they see, not one handed to them secondhand. Other times, the office has a more direct voice of its own, through the Ohio State Auditors Association’s lobbying arm, reaching the legislators actually writing these laws.
An Auditor can’t rewrite Ohio’s haphazard patchwork of property tax laws directly. I wrote about that patchwork problem recently.
The job of the Auditor isn’t just to keep records straight, it’s to allow the story those records reveal to be told, and, when the moment calls for it, to help tell it directly.
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What Is Amy Asking?
How can I get to know you better?
People are getting harder and harder to reach. We don’t answer our phones or our doorbells like we used to. We’re understandably all collectively overwhelmed by the sheer amount of information coming at us. And let’s be honest, “Honey, there’s a political candidate at the door who wants to talk to you” is not the sentence we all long to hear.
Yet, I’m committed to this campaign being a people-powered, people-oriented movement, so we’re going where people are: fairs, parks, coffee shops, breweries, art festivals, front porches, backyards and living rooms. Not to tell you who to vote for or what to care about, but to hear what truly matters to you.
What do you want to make together?
Are you the kind of person who loves to invite your friends and neighbors over? If you invite your friends, I’ll invite a few of my curious, artist friends, maybe bring a pottery wheel, or the supplies to make your own watercolor palette, and we’ll spend some time making alongside each other, or even better, making something together. Just think, something as easy as playing around with your neighbors could be the start of something truly remarkable, because remarkable things happen when people connect with intention.
If this conversation sparks your curious, creative, or collaborative side, I’d love to hear from you. Tell me what you’d like to ask, enjoy, solve, or build together.
Wherever you land on the political spectrum, you are invited. The only real requirement are honesty and a willingness to listen.
WHERE TO FIND AMY
Butler County Fair week
Hamilton
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Find Amy at the fair
The fair runs July 26 to August 1. Come say hello and ask her anything about your tax bill.
THE BUTLER BRIDGE
A community publication rooted in the concept of journalism for the common good, where the focus isn’t on the elected office or the corner office, but instead on everyday people feeling their own power, noticing needs, and working collaboratively to solve problems.
Following the money tells us what we value.
This campaign needs real money to win a real race, printed materials, countywide reach, the basic work of getting in front of enough people. But there’s a deeper reason this money matters. I want to change how we talk about public life, government, and politics, and that change can’t wait until I’m in office. It has to start now, in how this campaign itself talks. A donation funds both things at once, the practical work of winning, and the harder, more important work of proving a campaign can sound different before it ever holds power.
ELECTION DAY IS NOVEMBER 3, 2026
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BUTLER COUNTY, OHIO
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AMY HINES FOR BUTLER COUNTY AUDITOR
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