Westminster?s new finance director said he would help implement the city?s new financial software and start the 2008 budget process almost immediately.
“This position has a lot of challenges as I see it,” said Roland Unger, whom Mayor Thomas Ferguson will appoint and the Common Council will confirm Monday. “There?s the software implementation, better accounting of water billing and improving the budgeting process.”
Unger, of Hunt Valley, will take the position after stepping down after seven years as finance director for the state?s Supplemental Retirement Plans department, which oversees $2.3 billion in assets and 60,000 state workers? retirement plans, to start the city position Dec. 13.
The current software Westminster?s financial department uses is outdated and doesn?t allow for upgrades, Unger said.
“Calling it antiquated is like calling dinosaurs a modern phenomenon,” Ferguson said.
Unger will start next year?s budget process in January instead of March, an approach newly hired City Administrator Marge Wolf has advocated as well.
“One of the skills that attracted all of us who interviewed Mr. Unger was his more business-like approach to budget forecasting,” Ferguson said.
Unger?s start date next month “couldn?t have come at a better time” as finance department workers are “stretched to the limit,” he said.
Before his state service, Unger served 10 years as the chief financial officer of Cuddeback Companies in Baltimore, according to the city.
Unger is a certified public accountant, holds a master?s degree in business administration and is working on his doctoral degree in management from the University of Maryland. He is married with three grown children and hasn?t decided yet if he will move to Westminster, where he lived in the late 1980s. He replaces Joseph Urban, who retired this summer.
