San Diego Mayor Todd Gloria wooed Jay Goldstone out of retirement to be the city's chief operating officer on an interim basis while the city wrestles with pandemic-induced
“I have known Mayor Gloria since his days on the City Council, and stayed in touch with him when he was a state legislator,” Goldstone said.
Gloria asked Goldstone to take a look at the city’s financials last summer as he ran for office, and then tapped the public finance veteran to be interim COO on Dec. 10. He was officially confirmed by the City Council last week.
Goldstone worked with Gloria to restructure city leadership for a $1.2 million savings, eliminating two assistant chief operating officer positions and reducing the number of deputy chief operating officers from five to three. It will also result in more department heads, including the police and fire chiefs, reporting directly to Goldstone.
"It's a change in philosophy from the previous administration," Goldstone said.
"I believe in a flatter organization. Especially during tough budget times, scarce resources should go to services and not to administration. The mayor's and my philosophy is that you shouldn't over staff at the top levels," he said.
"The adjustments we’ve made will help protect our City in these uncertain economic times," Gloria said in a statement.
Goldstone worked the majority of his career in government finance chief positions. He
He joined MUFG after working as both San Diego’s chief financial officer and COO. During that era under Mayor Jerry Sanders, Goldstone helped the city shift from a city manager to a strong mayor form of government, a process that also restructured most of the city’s financial functions.
When Goldstone started as San Diego’s interim CFO in 2006, the city had effectively been barred from the municipal bond market for more than fivanctions by the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission.
At that point, San Diego was behind on its comprehensive annual financial reports and lacked financial leadership.
“They were going through a lot of problems, lacked financial leadership and couldn’t get their CAFR [comprehensive annual financial report] out,” Goldstone told The Bond Buyer when he retired. “I love challenges and thought ‘what a potential opportunity to go and apply what I have learned over the course of my career.”
He was named San Diego’s interim chief operations officer in June 2007, a position that became permanent four months later and that he held until 2013.
Goldstone is no stranger to helping California cities work through challenging times. Prior to working for San Diego, he helped Pasadena work through changes related to energy deregulation and helped Richmond regain its financial footing.
Though Goldstone said the city plans to conduct a national search for COO, no timeline has been set for how long he will serve as interim. He avoided a direct answer as to whether he would be willing to take on the position permanently.
“Right now, my priority is to help the mayor get through the budget cycle; and then we will have some discussions, because they had talked about doing a specific search,” Goldstone said.
Goldstone has been a ubiquitous presence in the industry over the course of his 44-year career, conducting training for the Government Finance Officers Association and serving on task forces for the California treasurer’s office, including one that looked at best practices following an embezzlement scandal at the Association of Bay Area Governments, a regional planning agency.
He chaired the Municipal Securities Rulemaking Board in 2012-2013.
