By Tim SchmidtRecord Managing EditorThough he would have preferred to leave on his own terms, Warren County Presiding Commissioner Arden Engelage is proud of his 18-year tenure in office.Engelage’s lengthy career as an elected official comes to a close this week. He spent the past eight years in the county’s top elected position, a stint that followed 10 years serving as Southern District commissioner.“We felt like we were improving the county,” Engelage said. “We were growing and getting ready for the future. I enjoyed working with the people when they had problems. I really enjoyed doing it, especially when you get things accomplished.”Engelage cites many recent projects as some of his favorite to have completed during his time on the three-person county commission. Some of those accomplishments include the construction of the 36,670-square-foot administration building, which houses all non-court related county offices, in 2012; using a dedicated tax to upgrade and pave around 15 county roads; and replacing deficient bridges.Engelage recently spoke with The Record to discuss his time as commissioner.Q: What will you miss about your job?“The employees, other elected officials, working with the people.”Q: How has the position changed over the years?“It’s gotten more demanding, I think. There are different programs to look at, grants, there is always something coming in. If you spend the time and look at it, there is always so much to do.“When I first came in, (the hours were) just Monday and Tuesday. With more demand, we increased to three days. Doing budget years ago, we would be there every day and some nights working on the budget until 11 o’clock at night. It was tremendous. That has all been streamlined for the better.“It use to take forever and it was back and forth and back and forth. Basically we didn’t have money and we were trying to find ways to find money. It made it difficult. The last few years, it didn’t take many hours, but it still takes a lot of time. Again, finding the money is the big thing.”Q: What do you feel are your greatest accomplishments in your tenure as commissioner?“Putting in bridges where they need to be, improving bridges, improving roads and making them safer and widening them. The population has nearly doubled from when I first came into office. We have more demands on our roads. That is one thing I look back on. The deficient bridges that we have replaced, we only have a few left. The remaining bridges are all small except for the one on (North) Rock Church.“I am very proud of (the new administration building). We were able to build that and have it paid for when we got done building it. You have to give employees a lot of credit, too. We went out for grants to help get it funded. That helped out with some different things. It was everyone working together to make it so special.“We put the new heating and cooling system in the courthouse and jail. That paid for itself in 20 months.“Also in the last years we built a new road shed. We used to have a little-bitty shed and you could look in the nail holes and see through to the outside. They have a nice garage to work in and have storage for our equipment, a place to load and unload our material. We put in the fuel system. We can bring in tractor-trailer loads of product and have it on hand, which helps us with being a storm-ready county.Q: What was the most difficult situation you faced?“I guess Augusta Bottom Road and having enough money to pay for raises to employees. That is always difficult. Employees are the backbone of the county. My thing was, we didn’t want to lay anybody off to give someone else a raise. You always looked for ways to make money to help general revenue so that we could pass raises along to employees, but we didn’t want to increase taxes either.“The budget is always hard. No matter what you do it’s not right, but you do the best you can with what you got. We have always done what we said we would do.”Q: Do you leave with any regrets?I would have liked to have four more (years), but I am pretty happy with what we accomplished. There are a few things I would have liked to have done. I think I am pretty content.Q: What advice would you give to those interested in serving in politics?“Always be honest and do what you say you will do. Always be available. Being accessible is very important and returning a phone call.”Presiding Commissioner, Arden Engelage