Longtime Mobile County Treasurer Phil Benson has died at age 83.
Services for Benson will be held Monday, November 24, at Cottage Hill Memorial Funeral Home, 7158 Cottage Hill Road in Mobile.
Visitation is 4-6 p.m., with the service at 6. Burial will be at the Alabama State Veterans Memorial Cemetery at Spanish Fort on Tuesday at 9 a.m.
Benson was the last treasurer of Mobile County, as the office was abolished effective 2024. He had been elected in 2012 and re-elected in 2016 and 2020.
Efforts to abolish the Mobile County treasurer and turn over the duties to the county commission had been around for more than two decades.
Benson ran on a platform of maintaining a separate elected treasurer to serve as a check and balance on the Mobile County Commission.
The voters seemed to agree each time he ran, electing Benson.
In 2022, the Alabama legislature passed and Governor Kay Ivey signed a law that abolished the treasurer’s office effective at the end of Benson’s term of office in 2024. It is estimated to save taxpayers about $52,000 a year.
The only Alabama county that still has an elected county treasurer is Jefferson, the state’s largest county.
Benson was a veteran of the U.S. Air Force and a graduate of Troy University in accounting. He worked as a CPA until retirement, when he ran for and was elected county treasurer in 2012 and served 12 years.
Benson was an avid visitor to Dauphin Island and a Sunday School teacher at Mobile megachurch, Christ United Methodist Church, where he served as church treasurer.
Philip R. Benson’s obituary is available to read here.
Jim Zig Zeigler is a contributing writer for Yellowhammer News. His beat includes the positive and colorful about Alabama – her people, events, groups and prominent deaths. He is a former State Auditor and Public Service Commissioner. You can reach him at ZeiglerElderCare@yahoo.com.
