The City of Tacoma has hired former San Antonio budget official Tad Wille as its next budget officer.
Wille begins work Monday. He will replace interim budget officer Tanya Robacker, who left the city for another job last month, city spokeswoman Gwen Schuler said.
Wille will make $68.75 per hour, or $143,000 per year, Schuler said. His pay will be reduced through the end of 2012 by 4.6 percent under a budget-saving pay cut affecting some employees. By comparison, Laura McPherson, the last city employee to hold the budget officer’s job permanently, was paid $57.21 per hour or about $119,000 per year. McPherson died unexpectedly this year.
City officials say Wille, a native of Cody, Wyo., has a master’s degree in public administration from Brigham Young University and more than 10 years of experience in managing budgets and financial reporting. During his six years in San Antonio, he helped manage a $2.3 billion budget, coordinated the city’s federal stimulus awards of $187 million and oversaw the capital budget and general fund revenue budgets.
As budget officer, Wille will work as a top assistant in the city’s finance department. Tacoma is still conducting a nationwide search for a new budget director after City Manager T.C. Broadnax fired Bob Biles in May.
Wille is at least the third former City of San Antonio staffer hired under Broadnax, who was an assistant city manager there before the Tacoma City Council hired him in December. Schuler, a former senior public information officer for San Antonio, replaced Rob McNair-Huff as Tacoma’s chief community relations officer in July. Nadia Chandler, who worked with Broadnax as an executive assistant in San Antonio, also joined Tacoma as “an assistant to the city manager.”
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