A nearly 10-year veteran of Houston government will head the city's finance department following Wednesday's city council approval of Melissa Dubowski's appointment.
Mayor John Whitmire, who took office this month after winning a Dec. 9 runoff election, said the appointment of a finance director was probably the most significant one he will make.
"We've got some financial challenges — we all know it," he said at the city council meeting. "But to have (Dubowski's) experience and dedication to the city is very comforting to me as a new mayor."
Houston is going "to make it or break it based on (Dubowski's) advice and counsel and I'm very confident we're going to make it, in fact we have no other choice," he said.
The nation's fourth-largest city, which is rated AA by Fitch Ratings and S&P Global Ratings and Aa3 by Moody Moody's Investors Service, has a growing structural budget imbalance and must address a
Dubowski takes over the finance director's spot from Will Jones, who served during Mayor Sylvester Turner's administration and who
She joined the city's finance department in August 2014 and has been a deputy director since 2019 of the treasury and capital management division, which oversees Houston's debt and forecasts tax revenue. In 2020, she was
At New York City's Office of Management and Budget, she oversaw the operating and capital budgets for the department of Health and Mental Hygiene and the Office of the Chief Medical Examiner. Prior to that she worked as a financial analyst for the Texas state comptroller's office.
