Inglewood CFO announces resignation
Sarah Moore | 4-21-2010 | Comments |
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The city of Inglewood, which is already operating without an elected mayor and city administrator, will lose its chief financial officer Jeff Muir this Thursday. Muir announced his resignation on April 7, and his last day is April 22. The following Monday, April 26, he will start his position as Culver City’s chief financial officer.“Over the last several weeks I have given much thought to this, but in considering my own health, my family, and my career and how those things fit together, I have made a decision to return to the Culver City post I formerly held,” Muir wrote in his resignation letter.
Muir began working in Inglewood in 1994. He left in 2007 to work as the CFO in Culver City but returned to Inglewood in December of 2009.
“We were thrilled to have him back,” said Judy Dunlap, Inglewood’s 2nd District councilwoman. “He is very talented.”
Muir came back to Inglewood to finish financial reports that had not been finished for the 2008 and 2009 fiscal years.
“I came to Inglewood wanting to save the financial situation,” Muir said. “There was a lack of reporting to city council, and the audits weren’t complete for a few years back. If you don’t finish your audits, it doesn’t give you a very realistic picture.”
Muir helped the city catch up on their audits, which were recently released and showed problems involving the city’s finances.
“They ran a huge deficit in the ’09 fiscal year, and there’s definitely a list of things the auditor wants the city to improve on,” Muir said.
But he insists these are not the issues causing him to leave, nor is the recent resignation of City Administrator Timothy Wanamaker, which Muir explained as a “relationship gone sour” between the city council and its administrator.
“I want to be clear that this was strictly a decision I made about what is in my personal and family best interests, and is not related to recent actions or decision or the challenges the City faces in the future,” Muir wrote.
“This is a big loss to us,” said Dunlap. “He was very valued and very trusted, trusted by everyone.” The city will look to fill his position with either a new CFO or a financial analyst for the city, said Dunlap.
“We have good people coming up, and we will refill his position,” she said.
Muir said the city also faces the possibility of layoffs and the elimination of positions, but he remains hopeful.
“The city will keep moving. It may move slower, but it will move.”
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