Finance Director Howard to step down

Concord's Finance Director Jim Howard has issued his resignation, effective April 2010, according to sources.
Howard plans on retiring at that time but is giving the city enough notice to find a suitable replacement, with ample time for the replacement to be brought up to speed on city finances.
Howard's retirement comes at a time when the city has many vacant positions and next year's budget is going to probably be a difficult one to balance. It also comes at a time when tens of thousands of finance people are out of work across the country. So a high quality replacement, at a below market salary rate, should not be hard to find.
Of course, any new hire will not come with the extensive institutional knowledge that Howard has of the city's finances or history. But with a compensation and benefits budget of nearly $800,000 for nine full-time equivalent positions, the city [and taxpayers] should expect to see some savings from this department line item in fiscal year 2011.