CLEVELAND HEIGHTS, Ohio — At his confirmation hearing last week before City Council, the nominee for finance director acknowledged that the city has some “catch-up work” to do.
The immediate task at hand will be getting a full year’s budget passed in place of the temporary version that runs through the end of March, Rodney G. Hairston said.
“Some of these deadlines are critical,” Hairston said in response to questions from Councilman Jim Petras on Jan. 15.
Mayor Kahlil Seren’s nominee for the post said that after applying, he looked at some taped city meetings from December “to get a sense of some of the challenges here.”
In his initial observations, he cited “a number of things that sort of fell behind, if you will,” Hairston said.
“I think my focus coming in would be to get some processes and procedures put in place so we don’t have that occurrence again.”
Introducing Hairston at the hearing, Seren acknowledged that in the long term, “we’ve got room to grow into the ways we should be communicating, developing and using this (financial) information for future planning.”
Seren expressed confidence in the ability Hairston has shown throughout his career to do the kind of financial analysis and forecasting that will work to the city’s advantage.
“Having spent a decade of my career working in government I think has prepared me for this position, and I’m looking forward to a number of areas where I can add value,” Hairston said.
These include preparing a comprehensive annual financial report (CAFR), putting together annual budgets and audits, and “getting information to council members where they have a good sense of where we stand financially.”
After earning an MBA from Case Western Reserve University’s Weatherhead School of Management in 1994, with a focus in banking and finance, Hairston spent five years in Dallas-Fort Worth with American Airlines.
“This is where I really cut my teeth in terms of learning how to prepare budgets and do financial analysis,” Hairston said.
Coming back to Northeast Ohio in 2006 for family reasons, Hairston got a job with FirstEnergy, which was then an Akron-based nonprofit.
He began his career in government in 2013, taking a comptroller position with the City of Cleveland at Hopkins International Airport.
“We went through a lot of turbulence during the time I was there,” he said, referring to the airport losing its “hub” status the following year after United merged with Continental Airlines.
During a particularly bad winter in 2015, Hopkins rerouted flights to Pittsburgh and wound up getting fined $750,000 by the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) because runways at Hopkins were not properly de-iced.
This led to the resignation of the airport’s then CEO.
Then, in April 2019, an “Easter egg” ransomware attack almost shut down the entire airport.
“We ran that airport for almost three weeks without computers,” losing all data and email, Hairston recalled.
Eleven months later, “we got hit with COVID,” Hairston added. “And that did shut the airport down for a bit.”
Hairston said he left the Cleveland Airport System with some reluctance, after more than eight years and high marks from both CEOs.
But one of his career goals involved working as a chief financial officer (CFO), with opportunities at the Cuyahoga County Board of Developmental Disabilities (CCBDD) and then St. Martin de Porres High School.
Council questions
Asked by Councilwoman Gail Larson why he did not become a Certified Public Accountant (CPA), Hairston said he had gained enough education through CWRU’s Weatherhead School, as well as financial experience in the field.
Seren said that looking at dozens of municipal finance director job postings nationally, “overwhelmingly CPAs are not required.”
And in 47 surrounding municipalities, Seren said only about 10 finance directors are CPAs.
As the city waits for the state audit results for the its 2023 financial statements that were sent in late, Larson asked Hairston about his experience with government auditing standards.
Hairston noted that he had gone through eight years of annual audits at the airport.
Asked by Councilman Craig Cobb about municipal finances, Hairston said he made the transition from corporate to government accounting with the City of Cleveland.
While he has not yet worked on Cleveland Heights’ “New World” software system, Hairston said he had reviewed the city’s financial statements.
Responding to questions from Councilman Jim Posch about the number of employees he supervised, Hairston said they included three accountants with the airport and 24 with CCBDD.
Hairston said the majority were in IT, with eight directly in finance and accounting.
“That’s what I was hoping to hear,” Posch said. “So this should be a pretty simple transition then, when you’ve had that level of reporting capabilities.”
Saying he was already inclined to vote for Hairston’s appointment, Posch asked about his experience in running a human resources office.
Cleveland Heights’ human resources post has been vacant in recent years and may fall under his purview.
While familiar with their associated functions, “the honest answer is I’ve never led an HR department,” Hairston said.
He noted that many payroll systems “run through HR in terms of salaries and projections.”
Asked about making presentations to Cleveland City Council, Hairston said that every year, “typically in the month of February, we would present our annual operating budget to council.”
Posch said he would like to reach a level of council “building trust” with the Cleveland Heights Finance Department.
“I think one of the most important things would be good, timely financial reporting,” Hairston said.
This includes presenting reports that contain a “high degree of accuracy and integrity, so members are well informed on how money is being spent,” as well as updates on revenue streams and expense allocations.
“If council members get the right financial information in terms of reporting in front of them, they’ll have a real good understanding of how well the city is doing,” Hairston added.
Posch noted that the third-quarter financial statements “just sort of got dropped on the city website without any presentation to council on where we were.”
Hairston said he would be willing to provide all necessary updates to council.
Council Vice President Davida Russell thanked Hairston for being so direct with answers to her questions, which were more specific to CCBDD, where she worked for 30 years.
Council President Tony Cuda said he would like to see budgets presented in similar formats to Shaker Heights and Lakewood.
Read more from the Sun Press.
