CANTON – Newly elected Town Supervisor Mary Ann Ashley seems to be settling in to her new environs at the Canton municipal building at 60 Main St.

The walls of the supervisor’s office there were stark last week as she worked to set up the office left by former Supervisor David Button. Button, who had served the town for 16 years, lost his re-election bid to Ashley, a former village mayor, in November.

With her first board meeting out of the way, and first payroll cycle for the town complete in the first two days of her term, Ashley said she will be focusing on reviewing the town’s financials and continuing to set up the systems of running her office.

“It's a philosophical difference on structures. We want to be efficient so we can be effective,” Ashley said.

The supervisor was in her office on New Year’s Day and spent 7 hours cleaning and organizing she said.

“It needed to be organized. It’s a difference of style,” the supervisor said.

Outside of setting up the office space itself, and taking care of the pressing day-to-day needs of helping to run a municipal government, Ashley said the transfer of duties and transition of accounts has been challenging.

“But we are getting things done and we are setting up the office. . . The biggest thing is the financials,” Ashley said. The supervisor said the process of transferring accounts from the previous supervisor to the newly elected supervisor is a complex process. “And we had to have all that done before we could sign the payroll.”

Ashley said she met with the town’s accounting firm Gray and Gray to go over town finances and seemed optimistic.

“We’re in really good shape and everyone got paid today,” said Ashley.

Ashley said outside her primary focus on the town’s financial status, continuing to develop a good working relationship with the village government and their efforts is another goal she will continue to foster.

And on the near horizon, the supervisor will be working on the negotiating the highway departments CSEA contract and starting the development of a 4-year comprehensive financial plan for the town.

Ashley’s first meeting of the town board was the town’s annual reorganizational meeting Jan. 3. One of the supervisor’s first actions at that meeting was to drastically downsize the number of supervisor appointed committees to a manageable level. Ashley, a former Canton village mayor, kept the board members and the public in the gallery on task during the meeting.

“The flow went well,” said Ashley of the meeting. “It’s all about the integrity of the process. I need to stay focused to do business.”

The supervisor plans several immediate changes for management of the regular meetings. First, she intends to work from a “rolling agenda,” calling for input on new business for the upcoming meeting from town board members at the close of every regular meeting.

Second, she plans to produce the meeting announcement and the copy of the agenda the week prior to the meeting time. Members of the public complained at several meetings last fall regarding the timing of the agenda’s release and what they felt was inadequate notice of the meetings previously.

Third, she plans for two public comment sections at each meeting, one at the beginning and the other at the end of the session, to allow the public to have input in the process.

Ashley is quick to promote a team approach to the work of the town board.

“There is no executive to the town. I am a town board member. The supervisor is the facilitor of the process, and I am the CFO of the town,” said Ashley. “But its about group process and developing trusting relationships.”