As city budget deadline looms, key Stockton financial positions remain unfilled

With the deadline for presenting Stockton’s nearly $1 billion budget to the City Council and the public less than a week away, officials are working to fill five top positions in the city department that’s responsible for delivering the plan on time. 

It’s unlikely they can fill the positions, housed in the Administrative Services Department, by the May 15 deadline. The city has even hired contractors to cover some of the work.

Invisible to most Stocktonians, the department is involved in virtually every aspect of the city’s financial operations — collecting taxes, accounting for all money flowing in and out of city accounts, managing Stockton’s debt and, most importantly, producing the high-stakes annual budget.

On Monday, a document posted on the city’s website revealed that the department may have as many as five vacancies in its leadership ranks, including three top executive roles and two positions responsible for compiling the budget.

The open roles include chief financial officer; two assistant CFOs; a lead budget officer and an assistant budget officer, according to the city’s May 5 request for proposals seeking a recruitment company to help fill the roles. The city is also hiring a manager in the procurement office, it shows, which handles contracts for goods and services.

The document marks the first indication that Stockton is missing its budget officer, with budget season now in full swing. It’s unclear when the most recent budget officer, Imelda Arroyo, may have left the role.

Arroyo didn’t immediately respond to a request for comment, and an auto-reply from her email stated she’s on leave. Interim City Manager Steve Colangelo did not respond by deadline to a request to confirm her employment status.

As for the CFO, Stockton lost its interim finance chief in February, Stocktonia reported, and its last permanent CFO in 2024. 

Vice Mayor and District 6 Councilmember Jason Lee protested Stocktonia’s reporting that the city had lost its financial leadership the month after the new City Council was seated.

“So, I want to just go on the record for saying that the CFO position was vacated 11 months ago. I saw a recent story in Stocktonia where they talked about how the city doesn’t have the number one financial person. But it hasn’t in the last eleven months,” Lee said at a City Council Audit Committee meeting last month.

While the last permanent CFO, Kimberly Trammel, left in May 2024, interim CFO and Deputy City Manager Jay Kapoor left just three months ago, Stocktonia reported. 

In fact, at another Audit Committee meeting Feb. 26, interim City Manager Steve Colangelo acknowledged firing two employees whose job descriptions matched Kapoor’s and that of another finance executive, former Assistant CFO Queen Gray.

“My day-two on the job, I made immediate changes (…) by dismissing the deputy city manager and also the person that was in charge of payroll,” Colangelo said.

The second assistant CFO position has been open since August, according to a city spokesperson.

Meanwhile, the deadline for the Administrative Services Department and the city manager to present a draft budget to the City Council and the public is fast approaching.

By Thursday, May 15, the interim city manager and Administrative Services’ budget team must gather all 13 city departments’ proposed budgets, in which department leaders spell out how they will afford their myriad public services, while also often proposing new ones. 

In the process, the team and the city manager typically work with each department to tailor their suggested spending. Last year, the final budget amounted to roughly $956 million.

After the May deadline, the City Council studies the proposed budget, makes suggestions and holds public hearings for residents to discuss it. The City Council must approve a final budget by June 30, the last day of the fiscal year.

How the vacancies in Administrative Services’ leadership could be impacting the budget process is something of a mystery.

By deadline, neither Colangelo nor Lee answered written questions about how the vacancies could impact the budget process. Colangelo also never responded to previous questions about his decision to fire the interim and assistant CFOs.

However, Deputy City Manager Rosemary Rivas told the City Council Audit Committee last month that the city has hired international consulting company Baker Tilly to “provide that long-term financial planning, and to help with the budget process.”

The Audit Committee is chaired by Lee and includes District 1 Councilmember Michele Padilla and District 3 Councilmember Michael Blower.

The city also hired a consultant from the San Francisco-based Ryland Consulting company “that will be in the office three days a week to provide interim CFO support,” Rivas said.

“First, (Ryland is) going to help with accounting and budget, because we’re late with our (Annual Comprehensive Financial Report),” Rivas said. “Those are our two top priorities as well because of the time crunch.”

While Lee referred to the Ryland consultant — accounting and finance expert Matthew Nethaway — during the Audit Committee meeting as “the guy who came in as the interim CFO,” Nethaway is “not interim CFO,” Ryland Consulting’s president, Teresa R. Ryland, told Stocktonia by phone Thursday. 

“We don’t have that many hours available,” she said.

Amid the upheavals, the Administrative Services Department is also facing investigations requested by Lee and Padilla at a previous Audit Committee meeting. One will be carried out by Ryland, and one will be carried out by a company called TriGroup, Rivas said.

The investigations arose from committee members’ concerns about errors in city employees’ pay.

At the April Audit Committee session, Rivas and committee members repeatedly referred to the Ryland investigation as a “forensic audit.” But Ryland’s president said Thursday that’s not the type of investigation they plan to carry out. 

Instead, they’ll be performing a forensic review, which has different standards, she said.

When asked to clarify, Vice Mayor Lee said in a statement Friday, “As part of our commitment to transparency and fiscal responsibility, the City Council has authorized a comprehensive forensic audit of our entire financial status.”

No agenda item dedicated to a forensic audit has come before the City Council so far this year. Neither a city spokesperson nor Lee immediately respond to requests for clarification of when the issue may have gone before council.

Councilmember Padilla referred Stocktonia’s question about the investigation to Lee. Councilmember Blower had no comment on the investigations or vacancies, he said.

It’s also unclear how much the investigations will cost in total.

Again, the interim city manager sent no response to questions about how undergoing internal investigations could impact the Administrative Services Department’s efforts to create next year’s budget.

Meanwhile, city leaders are discussing how to recruit a new CFO and new assistant CFOs with investigations going on, Rivas said in April.

“We want to make sure that they have a department that they can come in and run with, and perform at their highest capabilities,” she said. “It’s hard when you bring someone in here, and it’s kind of a mess, right? You’re kind of setting them up for failure.”