VOORHEESVILLE — After eight years of service, Sarita Winchell is stepping down from the Voorheesville Board of Trustees. 

Winchell made the announcement Wednesday, citing family obligations; she expects to resign at the board’s Feb. 11 workshop. 

Winchell worked for the Voorheesville Central School District from 1974 to 2011, and then again, in 2014 and 2015, on an interim basis. She began as treasurer for the district and then moved on to become assistant superintendent for business for nine years. 

She was appointed to the board in 2017 by then-Mayor Robert Conway, who said at the time that Winchell had been a very engaged member of the village’s  comprehensive plan committee, where she’d been doing great work.

He added, “Sarita has been part of the community for years. She is well known, not only for her community works, but for her time at the school district as their businessperson. I thought she would be a great addition because of her budgeting skills, and her business acumen.”

Winchell said in 2017 that she accepted the appointment because, “I’m a long-time member of the community. My grandparents lived here and I was always coming to my grandparents’ house, and now I live in my grandparents’ house. I have a love of the community.”

Winchell’s twin sister, Lydia Tobler, also worked for the Voorheesville district for years, as a music teacher. After she died, the district named its performing arts center in Tobler’s honor.

Winchell’s time on the comprehensive planning committee made her even more interested in joining the board. In 2017, she said she wanted to take all of the work done by the planning committee, and get it into writing and create a road map for the village — a feat that has since been accomplished with significant portions already implemented. 

Winchell said in 2017 that she saw “retirement as a time to give back to the community. When I was working all those years — and I worked for the district for 37 years — raising my family, I didn’t have time to do any volunteering. Now I do. This is the time for me to give back to the community; that’s how I feel about it.”

Winchell has also been active as a volunteer in leading the New Scotland Historical Association.

On Jan. 14, when asked about her time on board, Winchell said, “Well, I’m amazed at how much work that this village has gotten done in these last few years when you think of the amount of projects — our capital projects. The sewer line on Main Street, the water line, sidewalks — we’ve got two down and now one more.”

She continued, “I really feel that [the village] is heading in the right direction in the water fund to do more replacements. You have a plan in place that you’ll be up to a million dollars there in two months.”

And, Winchell said, “Financing that bond saved so much money,” referring to the village’s decision to refinance its bonding on the firehouse, which resulted in hundreds-of-thousands in savings. 

“She helped us all to be better people,” Trustee Jack Stevens said, noting Winchell “kept us all on our toes” regarding procedural compliance.

It was her expertise in the nuts and bolts of government — policies and procedures and reporting — for which Winchell was praised and which she herself said she was most proud of. 

“I think things like the employee handbook,” Winchell said, along with  helping bridge gaps created by recent staffing turnover, [and] before that, just working with the staff with all those reports and everything.” 

The board is set to adopt a slew of policy updates spearheaded by Winchell on Feb. 11.

Winchell also pointed to her work “moving from procedures in people’s brains to procedures on paper so that there’s continuity if there are staffing changes.”

Linda Pasquali — who as clerk-treasurer, along with her deputy, Karen Finnessey, kept the village humming for decades and who retired a few years ago but, amid turnover, came back as an assist to Mayor Rich Straut — in an email to The Enterprise said Winchell: 

— “Focused on finances and a 5-year plan which included equipment and infrastructure”; 

— “Reviewed monthly bank reconciliations and was always available to help with tricky finance questions; and

— Refinanced “the firehouse bond, the savings was over $200,000 (which is a lot for our little Village).”’

Pasquali wrote, “As treasurer, I appreciated her work as budget officer as well as the year-end closing of finances and preparing annual reports to file with the Comptroller’s Office.”