Who knows how long Anne Kelly-Lenz would have survived as finance director under Joe Ganim who returns to the mayor’s office on Tuesday. She did not give him the chance to replace her. She’s headed to Wilton as chief financial officer there, according to a story in the Wilton Bulletin.
Kelly-Lenz worked in the city Finance Department for about 10 years. She was appointed finance director in 2012. Bridgeport’s finance director oversees the revenue side of the budget such as tax collections and tax assessments. Former Fairfield First Selectman Ken Flatto could end up as either finance director or director of the office of Policy and Management, which builds and oversees the revenue side of the budget. Prior to his election as first selectman, Flatto served as the chief financial officer for Orangetown NY, and comptroller and deputy commissioner for the City of Yonkers NY. Flatto is a licensed certified public accountant. He received his MBA from Cornell University.
From the Wilton Bulletin. Thanks to OIB reader Madeline Dennis for the heads-up on this.
At a special Board of Selectmen meeting Tuesday, Nov. 24, Wilton’s selectmen unanimously hired Anne Kelly-Lenz to permanently fill the position of Chief Financial Officer (CFO) Sandy Dennies, whose resignation takes effect Nov. 30.
Kelly-Lenz will be leaving her post as finance director of the city of Bridgeport to join Wilton. According to her LinkedIn page, she has six years’ experience in the private sector as the accounting manager of a hedge fund company preceding her public career.
For the city of Bridgeport, she worked three years as treasurer, four as tax collector and four as finance director.
Full story here.
Good riddance. She was a tight-lipped, uncooperative person. She did what Sherwood told her to do. Wilton’s loss is our gain.
*** True that Andy, she was a Finch Admin. City puppet! ***
I hope Wilton continues to be satisfied with the way Anne Kelly-Lenz answers questions. If she got a 9.7 from her superiors it was for the way she kept things under wraps refusing to answer reasonable questions and supporting the lack of initiative of the Budget & Appropriations Committee and their willingness to accept the status quo as to financial reporting (which they basically ignored) and to stifle questions that were reasonably raised about the errors in her work that appeared not to have been reviewed before she signed off. (It would be worse, in my opinion, for her to admit she had reviewed the papers she signed, and failed to see errors.)
For Bridgeport she wasn’t a 10, and to get a 9.7 means Tom Sherwood and one or more of the senior Finch team were wondrous in their praise. If Wilton used comments from Sue Brannelly or Mike Marella, co-chairs of the Budget and Appropriations Committee, unaware elected fiscal watchdogs for Bridgeport taxpayers, then they were only looking at high school popularity contests. Again, who would provide high scores for the way she “followed the leader” and not the string of questions? On the revenue side, the first audited FINAL JUNE MONTHLY REPORT in two decades for the year 2013 surfaced in early 2014. The third revenue line item showed $500,000 appearing in the Miscellaneous Cash line item of the Comptroller budget. Many times I asked where that CASH had come from. Never any answer. Tight-lipped, you bet. Time will tell.