Port Townsend resident Jodi Adams will start her new job as the city of Port Townsend’s director of finance and technology services on April 15.

Adams’ experience in the public and private sectors as a leader and manager includes a recent stint as the permit and administration supervisor for the city of Bainbridge Island, prior to which she served as a manager with Jefferson County.

“I’m thrilled to bring a talented professional and strategic leader like Jodi into our city team,” City Manager John Mauro said of Adams, who also has experience as an accountant, budget analyst and fiscal technician. “In her interviews and her previous work, she’s demonstrated her stand-out abilities to bring people and teams together to solve difficult problems, to think and innovate across multiple disciplines, and to provide quality and reliable services to the communities she serves.”

Beyond leading, managing and directing the city finance team, the finance and technology services director provides advice and counsel to city staff and management, the city council and the city manager on finance, budget and technology issues.

“The director is responsible for making sure the finance and technology services personnel are working together, as a team, efficiently and happily,” Adams said. “Our goal is to ensure that everyone is not only doing what they should be doing, but also what they want to be doing, since that can help avoid too much employee turnover.”

The director also works with the city manager and all the department directors to interpret, develop, implement and administer those policies, procedures and agreements that concern budget and fiscal matters.

“Not only do I aid the city in brainstorming ideas, but I also make sure it meets its benchmarks,” said Adams, who cited statutory requirements, such as the development of a balanced budget and the completion of regular state audits, as but two examples that depend on the director and their finance team.

Adams also sees her role of providing guidance to the city as extending to include the implementation of new strategic approaches, such as the Financial Sustainability Initiative and the Transportation Benefit District, which she credited to strategic leadership across several city departments.

Adams explained that the city’s finance and technology services department recently gained a second technology services employee, and as of March 22, was interviewing candidates for a third public experience liaison, while also looking to fill a vacancy in payroll, to bring the department up to a full staffing of close to a dozen.

“Fortunately for me, our two technology service employees already work well together,” Adams said. “But I need to understand not just how the department currently operates, but also how those operations can be improved. Again, it’s a matter of making sure everyone is well-suited to their roles and responsibilities. We want our employees to love their jobs, in addition to being good at them, because their job satisfaction helps us retain them.”

Adams described herself as “beyond excited” to be working for the city of Port Townsend, where she can serve the town and the people to whom she feels so connected. She added that she sees her coworkers-to-be as “hard-working and creative,” to the degree that she feels “privileged to join a group of ambitious, dynamic and collaborative people, committed to serving the community.”