Dave Massaron, Detroit’s chief operating officer, will be stepping in at the start of the year to head the city's financial operations, Mayor Mike Duggan announced.
Massaron will become acting chief financial officer on Jan. 1, taking over for CFO John Hill who has held the position since November 2013.
"Dave brings a wealth of experience of finances and city budgets to the role of interim CFO," Duggan said Tuesday in a statement.
Duggan intends to name a permanent replacement in the spring. Under state law, the city has 180 days from Hill’s departure, or June 30, to confirm a new CFO.
Hakim Berry, the city’s labor relations officer, will become acting COO, in addition to his regular duties.
Massaron has served as the city’s COO and senior counsel to Duggan since 2016. He is credited with shepherding a
In September Hill announced plans to leave Duggan's administration by the end of the year. He was hired in 2013 by the state-appointed emergency manager at the time, Kevyn Orr, to help manage Detroit’s financial restructuring during bankruptcy.
Hill had originally planned to leave Detroit shortly after it exited bankruptcy in December 2014 but was asked to stay on by the Duggan administration to oversee restructuring of the city's financial operations and prepare for scheduled increases in the city’s pension contributions.
"What's he's done in the last five years has been remarkable,” Duggan said. "He said he'd stay a year and he stayed five. He and I are very close and it's going to be a hard thing to see him go."
Hill is credited with steering the city through the adoption of four consecutive balanced budgets that allowed it to emerge from state oversight this spring.
Under his leadership the city earned three bond rating upgrades, although it remains in junk bond territory, and earlier this month structured the city’s first
In May, Moody’s Investors Service upgraded the city’s issuer rating to Ba3 from B1. In December, S&P Global Ratings upgraded the city’s issuer credit rating to B-plus.
The city also launched a redemption offer for bonds it issued in 2014 as part of its bankruptcy exit package. In the tender offer that expired Dec. 3, investors returned about $200 million of the nearly $632 million of series 2014B financial recovery bonds that mature in 2044. The tender that the city financed through a bond refunding will reduce a spike in debt service payments by nearly $155 million between fiscal 2025 and 2030, according to the city.
In April the city redeemed all outstanding principal and interest on its Financial Recovery Bonds, series 2014C, which saved the city $11.7 million in interest expense.
The city this week filed its
“The last time the City made this deadline was in 2012, so it has been a long road back,” Chief Deputy CFO and Finance Director John Naglick said. “Fiscal 2013 was filed thirteen months late, Fiscal 2014 was filed twelve months late, Fiscal 2015 and Fiscal 2016 were filed eleven months late and Fiscal 2017 was one month late.”
Naglick said that fiscal 2018 results were in line with expectations.
The general fund balance grew to $611.1 million from $592.8 million at June 20, 2017. Naglick said that the general fund had an excess of revenue over expenses of $55.4 million, which was net of $54.4 million for the C Note redemption during the fiscal year.
