Francine Boxer Named County Administrator Will Oversee Department Heads, 1,700 Employees

A woman whose career started at the lowest rung of Spokane County government is its new top employee.

County commissioners appointed Francine Boxer as county administrator on Monday. She will oversee appointed department heads and 1,700 employees, answering only to commissioners, whose offices are on the same short hallway as her own.

Commissioners are set to finalize the appointment today. The only other person in the running for the job, Public Works Director Dennis Scott, withdrew his name Friday, commissioners said.

Scott had said during his job interview that he wasn’t certain he wanted to leave the Public Works Department, where he has more independence than nearly any other county employee. Making the change also would have meant a cut in pay, since Scott already earns more than Boxer will as his boss.

“I kind of wish there were two or three people competing,” Commissioner Phil Harris told Boxer on Monday. “I want you to know you were not selected because you’re the last person standing.”

Boxer, 47, started at the county in 1975, as an administrative assistant in Juvenile Court. She was at the bottom of the pay scale.

She attended night school at Eastern Washington University, earning a bachelor’s degree in liberal arts, and is near to completing a master’s degree in communications.

“I’ve never chosen comfort over challenge,” said Boxer, the first woman to hold the county’s top non-elected position. “I’ve always chosen challenge.”

Boxer replaces Jim Lindow, with whom she has worked for 10 years, first at Geiger Corrections Center, then at the county Corrections Department and most recently as assistant chief administrative officer.

Lindow, who had a heart attack in January, is retiring at the end of this month. In the meantime, Boxer has taken over nearly all his duties.

Lindow has been chief administrative officer - with slightly different duties and higher pay than those Boxer will assume as county administrator - since 1995.

Boxer and Lindow share few similarities other than mutual admiration.

He’s quiet and controlled, a golfer and church-goer with an easy laugh. She’s an irreverent prankster who sometimes commutes by bicycle.

When Commissioner Kate McCaslin asked her to name a personal weakness, Boxer joked during a job interview: “Umm, well, I’ll just have to make one up.”

If Lindow is Ward Cleaver, Boxer is Morticia Addams.

An amateur entomologist who owned her first microscope at age 7, Boxer’s county office is decorated with framed tropical insects, moths and 6-inch beetles. She traded an intricate stained-glass window she crafted herself for a massive wasp hive displayed in one corner of the room.

Her contribution to the courthouse’s 1996 Halloween potluck was Jell-O molded into the shape of a human brain.

Boxer lives on 10 acres overlooking the Little Spokane River with three dogs, an iguana named Debbie Marie and a tarantula named Lily Marie. Her own middle name is Marie, she explained, so any female pets also get the name.

The latest addition to the menagerie is an Airedale-mix Boxer saved from a pound while vacationing in Mexico. Meeting requirements to bring a dog into the United States cost Boxer the money she had set aside for paragliding.

Her license plate reads “IMATWIN.” Her identical sister, Charlotte Gallagher of Portland, is a vice president of U.S. Bank.

“I was born very, very lucky” to have a twin, Boxer said.

, DataTimes ILLUSTRATION: Color photo

MEMO: This sidebar appeared with the story: NEW SALARY Francine Boxer will earn $68,832 a year as Spokane County administrator. She’ll be eligible for a raise in six months and could eventually earn $80,000 a year $7,000 less than her predecessor, Jim Lindow. Lindow and Boxer both recommended that the position carry a lower salary and slightly fewer responsibilities than it has in the past. In addition, Boxer recommended county commissioners eliminate the assistant’s position that she currently holds. Between the pay cut and the reduced salary, taxpayers will save about $100,000 a year, officials said.