Brophy ready to fill big shoes in Finance

ALBANY — After City Manager James Taylor interviewed what he called “three very qualified in-house candidates” to serve as interim director of the city’s Finance department with the pending departure of Director Kris Newton, Taylor decided to go with Accounting Manager JoEllen Brophy.

It’s a move Newton, who will retire Oct. 31 after six years in the position, applauds.

“I told Mr. Taylor all three (Brophy, budget officer Larry Johnson and accounting manager Derrick Brown) would do the job well, and he struggled over his choice for a while,” Newton said. “But Mr. Taylor, I believe, puts a lot of stock in listening to his own instincts. I think that was the deciding factor.”

In Brophy, the city will get an Air Force veteran who has quickly made her mark in the Finance office during a tenure of less than two years. She was hired in 2011 as a senior accountant and within six months had moved up to accounting manager.

“Jo’s scary smart,” Newton said of her protege. “She came into this office and proved herself in a hurry. I feel confident the department will be in good hands.”

Born in Kansas and raised there and in Michigan, the city’s interim Finance director served seven years in the U.S. Air Force, four in military intelligence, before leaving for the private sector. After serving at Offult AFB in Omaha, Neb. (where she was named U.S. Air Force Intelligence Airman of the Year in 1996) and Elsworth AFB in Rapid City, S.D., she and her husband Jason opted for civilian life in Billings, Mont., to be closer to Jason’s son.

JoEllen Brophy worked as a bill collector for Conseco Finance for a period and as a military insurance recovery specialist with Standard Technology Inc. for four years before that position went away. When it did, Brophy decided she wanted to go to school to study accounting.

“I took an accounting class in high school and really liked it,” she said. “That was my first choice when I thought about returning to school, and from the first class I loved it.”

Brophy attended Montana State University at Billings for two years before starting a full-time job that made it impossible to attend classes regularly. So she finished up her accounting degree online at Lynchburg, Va.’s Liberty University. A short while later, with eight years of the cold in Billings under their belt and the birth of daughters Amber, now 12, and Alex, 8, the Brophys started looking for a change of pace.

Her brother was a retired Marine living in Sylvester, and when they came South for a visit, they stayed. She got a job with the Clenney, Powell and Rentz CPA firm before accepting an offer to come to work for the city.

Now she’s facing the biggest challenge of her civilian career.

“I think I’m up to the task,” Brophy said. “Of course, this is not going to be about me. We have a staff of 21 in this department, and they all do an amazing job. I couldn’t hope to achieve the level of performance expected of us without all of us working together.”

A large part of the Finance department’s performance involves overseeing a city budget whose income and expenditures are well in excess of $100 million. That’s a pretty daunting figure, even for an experienced numbers cruncher.

“If I didn’t let that intimidate me at least a little,” Brophy said, “I’d be a fool. I know I can’t enter into this lightly. Trust me, I thought, talked and prayed about this a long time before I decided to apply.”

Taylor said he expects “the same kind of great things” from Brophy as Newton delivered during her tenure. The city manager said he expects to name a permanent director at some time in “the next three, four or five months.”

“There are concerns about fully incorporating Water, Gas & Light (finances) into the city’s,” Taylor said Friday. “We’ve got to handle that transition carefully to make sure we keep WG&L vibrant. We believe there are opportunities to generate even more income there. We don’t want to rush things.

“Jo understands that she is serving on an interim basis. She and (Johnson and Brown) have been assured that they will have an opportunity to apply for the permanent position at a later date, but right now we’re going to make sure she gets the guidance, help and support she needs to continue the excellent job that she’s done for us already.”

Brophy, meanwhile, said she’s thrilled to have an opportunity to serve the people of Albany.

“We are servants of the people of this community,” she said. “I have a servant’s heart and a military mind, and I believe that’s what makes me right for this position. I understand that I am interim, but for the time that I am in this position I will treat it as if I am the director. To do anything else would be a waste of everybody’s time.”