Memorandum

City of Lawrence

City Manager’s Office

TO:	Tom Markus, City Manager
FROM:	Casey Toomay, Assistant City Manager
CC:	Diane Stoddard, Assistant City Manager; Brandon McGuire, Assistant to the City Manager
DATE:	11/12/2018
RE:	Personnel Changes in the Finance Department

The City is excited to announce some personnel changes in the Finance Department.  The City has hired a new Finance Director and appointed a Budget and Strategic Initiatives Manager. 

Effective November 19, 2018, Jeremy Willmoth will begin serving as the new Finance Director for the City of Lawrence.  Jeremy holds a Bachelors’ Degree of Public Administration and Masters’ Degree of Public Affairs from Park University in Parkville, Missouri. 

He most recently served as the City Administrator in Winfield, Kansas., where he led projects to improve backlogs on infrastructure improvements, enhanced the City’s Budget document, and implemented several policies pursuant to best practices identified by the Government Finance Officers’ Association (GFOA). 

Prior to serving in Winfield, Willmoth served for nearly seven years as the County Administrator in Cowley County, Kansas.  There he created a comprehensive budget process and document, assisted in merging dispatch services with the cities of Arkansas City and Winfield, assisted in passing a ¼ cent sales tax for a county operations center, and reinstituted tax sales of delinquent properties. 

From January 2008 until November of 2011, Willmoth served as Finance Director for the City of Raytown, Missouri.  There he retooled the budget process to include performance indicators, creating the first budget for the City to receive the GFOA Budget Presentation Award, expanded the use of technology by establishing payment by credit card and by upgrading the City’s financial software management systems, and establish meaningful financial summary reports for the public and elected officials. 

Willmoth has also served as the Budget Administrator and Deputy Director of Finance for Jackson County, Missouri.  During his tenure, he restructured the Finance Department, combining it with the Purchasing Department, successfully installed a new financial management system and payroll system, streamlined accounts payable processes, and oversaw the development and monitored the County’s $250 million budget.

Also, effective November 19, 2018, Danielle Buschkoetter will begin a new role with the City as Budget and Strategic Initiatives Manager.  In that role Buschkoetter will be responsible for directing development, implementation, and monitoring of the City’s annual budget as well as initiatives identified in the City’s Strategic Plan. 

Buschkoetter, who will report to the Finance Director, has served as the City’s Strategic Projects Manager since March of 2017 as well as the City’s Interim Finance Director since September of 2018.  Buschkoetter has also served as a management intern for the City of Lawrence and City of Olathe, Kansas.  She holds a Bachelor of Arts in Communication Studies and Community and Regional Planning and a Masters’ of Public Administration from the University of Kansas. 

This personnel change is directly linked to the Commission’s priority initiative to, “developing a plan to implement priority-based budgeting and enhance communication in the annual budget process” and will not result in any additional personnel to the city operation.