For the past 20 years, Dowagiac Treasurer Robin Coffey has spent her career minding the city coffers, tabulating the city’s dollars and cents.

Over the next several weeks, though, she will have another figure to count — the days remaining until her retirement.

Earlier this week, the longtime civil servant announced that she would be stepping down from her position on April 28. Coffey will leave the position before the end of her current four-year term, which expires in December.

Members of the Dowagiac City Council are expected to decide in the coming weeks on how to fill Coffey’s position after her departure, said City Manager Kevin Anderson.

“There is no particular reason why or anything,” Coffey said about her decision to step away from city hall. “I just decided it was time.”

Coffey, who has served as city treasurer since 1997, said she plans on joining her husband, Mike, in retirement. The latter retired from his position with the U.S. Postal Service a couple years ago, Coffey said.

The lifelong resident of Dowagiac has worked at city hall for nearly 27 years, first joining the city as a clerk in the utility department in 1990, she said.

Before joining the public sector, Coffey worked for five years at Dowagiac’s Wolverine Mutual Insurance. After starting a family, she stayed at home raising her children for nine years, before taking a part-time position with the school district, she said.

After spending several years in the city’s utility department, Coffey said she was approached by then-City Clerk James Snow, who encouraged her to apply for the vacant treasurer position following Lois Hall’s retirement in 1997, Coffey said.

Although she had never been in that line of work before, she decided to take his advice and apply.

“Jim Snow can talk you into anything,” Coffey joked.

As treasurer, Coffey manages the city’s finances, which includes taking care property tax payments from residents and ensuring funds are properly distributed, she said. In addition, she also assists with some of the operations of the local cemetery and airport.

Coffey was re-elected to the office several times throughout her tenure, her last election,  in November 2013.

Working with five city managers and many different councilmembers in her career, Coffey said she has always gotten along with her fellow city leaders.

Perhaps due to working alongside Snow — known by many as “Mr. Dowagiac” — for so many years before his retirement in 2015, Coffey said she has become quite the local history buff herself since taking office. She is an avid collector of books and articles pertaining to the rich story of Dowagiac, a collection she hopes to pass down to her children one day, she said.

Following her retirement, Coffey and her husband plan to stick around Dowagiac, spending time with their grandchildren, she said.

The thing she will miss most about her career will not be the spreadsheets or the invoices, but the many fellow civil servants she has worked alongside for nearly 30 years.

“I have met a lot of wonderful people I otherwise would not have if I was not in this position,” Coffey said. “I have made a lot of food friends through the years.”