The Leelanau County Board of Commissioners is about to enter its third round of interviews with the leading candidates for the county’s new administrator/chief financial officer (CFO) role, which could lead to a quick resolution to over three years of internal conflict in local government if the board chooses wisely.
At the root of the problem is the previous county board of commissioners’ decision in May 2021 to remove finance and personnel duties from the county clerk and assign them to new finance and human resources (HR) departments.
Many Michigan counties separate these responsibilities into different departments, but the transition required planning and mutual buy-in that were sorely lacking in Leelanau County at the time. The motion was a late addition to the board’s meeting agenda and was approved after little discussion by a 4-3 vote along party lines.
The new finance department ended up passing through five sets of hands since it was activated in January 2022. The county’s most recent finance director, Sean Cowan, reported that he did not “have the resources, authority, staff, or executive support (BOC) necessary in order to be successful,” and resigned after five months in October 2023.
Indeed, a report by the county’s advisory firm Rehmann from September suggests that the transition of finance and accounting duties from the clerk’s office to the finance department was still incomplete over a year and a half later.
After Cowan left, the board considered several options. Among them were having the finance director report directly to the county board instead of the county administrator, and replacing the finance director with a controller position that has duties governed by state statutes.
But the board changed directions again in early February when County Administrator Deb Allen announced she was stepping down to make way for a new administrator with a “deep” financial background, which she said she lacked.
Also in February, the county board agreed to create a combined county administrator/CFO position, with the finance department and its director reporting to the administrator/CFO.
According to the board chairman, one of the major benefits of this change is having just one person report to the board on county finances. Since November, both the administrator and Interim Finance Director Catherine Hartesvelt have been reporting to the board on financial matters.
Allen said this is an unusual arrangement, and as many as a third of Michigan counties have combined their administrator and CFO roles.
This new position is going to hold a lot of power in the county government. Whoever is hired will be tasked with implementing the board’s directives, have authority over all county departments, and be directly responsible for the finance and HR departments.
Besides directing county board meetings, the new administrator/CFO will also seek to put the county finances in order. To help them do this, the board will task them with finding and appointing a finance director to serve under them. The board has so far declined to appoint Interim Director Hartesvelt to this position and deferred the decision to the next administrator/CFO.
The board has spent the last three months searching for the right person for this role. And if they are to remain consistent with the stated reasons for creating the new position, they need to choose someone who has both financial knowledge and administrative talent.
