Description

The Finance Director serves as a key member of the Town’s executive leadership team and provides strategic financial guidance to the Town Manager, Board of
Commissioners, department directors, and senior leadership team.

The Finance Director leads a small but critical team consisting of the Finance Director, Accountant, and Payroll Clerk. Because the department is small, the successful candidate must be both strategic and practical: able to advise the Town Manager and Board, while also establishing clear workflows, documentation standards, review processes, staff development plans, and practical compensating controls.

The Finance Director will help the Town understand the financial implications of this growth pattern and support decisions that balance residential growth, commercial tax base, infrastructure investment, operating costs, and long-term revenue sustainability.

The Finance Director is responsible for ensuring financial functions are properly assigned, documented, reviewed, reconciled, and continuously improved. The Director is not expected to personally perform every technical task, but must ensure that core functions are reliable, compliant, timely, and understood by the team.

The Finance Director will start the role with a commitment to the following initial priorities:

• Strengthen internal controls, documentation, and review procedures.
• Stabilize core finance operations and clarify roles within the Finance Department.
• Improve budget monitoring, financial reporting, and budget-to-actual analysis.
• Support timely audit completion, audit readiness, and corrective action.
• Modernize procurement, contracting, invoice review, pre-audit, and payment workflows.
• Develop practical segregation-of-duties solutions and compensating controls for a small Finance Department.
• Improve long-range forecasting, capital planning, debt analysis, cash flow monitoring, and fund balance planning.
• Clarify which finance-related responsibilities should remain in Finance and which should be reassigned or supported by other departments as the  organization grows.
• Train departments on budget monitoring, purchasing, documentation, and compliance expectations.
• Build a strong, service-oriented Finance Department that supports the organization and earns public trust.

The Finance Director’s ongoing key responsibilities include the following:

• Serve as the Town’s chief financial advisor and a member of the executive leadership team.
• Lead development of the annual operating budget and capital budget.
• Develop and maintain multi-year revenue and expenditure forecasts.
• Monitor revenues, expenditures, fund balance, budget-to-actual performance, and financial trends.
• Strengthen internal controls and ensure financial activity is properly authorized, documented, reviewed, reconciled, and retained.
• Ensure compliance with the North Carolina Local Government Budget and Fiscal Control Act, pre-audit requirements, procurement laws, Town policies, and
  applicable financial standards.
• Lead corrective action related to audit findings, internal control issues, policy gaps, and process weaknesses.
• Oversee procurement, purchasing, contracting, invoice review, accounting operations, payroll, reconciliations, grants accounting, financial reporting, cash
  flow, investments, and debt service.
• Coordinate the annual audit and required financial reports
• Lead capital planning, debt analysis, long-range financial strategy, and support for the Capital Improvement Program.
• Modernize financial systems, workflows, records, procedures, and reporting.
• Lead, supervise, coach, and develop Finance Department staff.
• Train departments on budget monitoring, procurement, purchasing, documentation, and compliance expectations.

Requirements

Qualifications

The qualified applicant will have a bachelor’s degree in accounting, business administration, public administration, or related field and a minimum of five years of
progressively responsible experience in municipal finance, local government finance, public-sector accounting, auditing, budgeting, or financial management. A minimum of three years of supervisory experience is required.

Preferred qualifications include:

• A master’s degree in Accounting, Finance, Public Administration, Business Administration, or a related field
• Experience as a Finance Director, Assistant Finance Director, Budget Director, Controller, or senior municipal finance leader
• Experience with North Carolina municipal finance strongly preferred
• Experience in a rapidly growing local government
• CPA, CPFO, CGFO, or similar certification
• Experience with debt issuance, capital financing, grants, impact fees, long-range forecasting, CIP development, internal controls, audit corrective actions, procurement modernization, and financial system improvements