HOLYOKE — As the city rectifies its cash-related issues, Timothy “TJ” Plante said he’s ready to take over as Holyoke’s first chief administrative financial officer.
Mayor Joshua Garcia chose Plante to lead the department on July 27, and the City Council approved the appointment at its Aug. 4 meeting.
Plante began his tenure on Aug. 10 and talked with Reminder Publishing about his time so far and goals for the future.
“So far, the transition’s going good,” Plante stated. “It’s just a great opportunity to come in at the ground level to help the city, the residents, the taxpayers, and the mayor and the City Council run the city in an organized fashion with a professional manager now.”
Plante also stated his new position offers an exciting opportunity because the mayor and City Council recently passed the Municipal Modernization Act, which created the CAFO position, a comptroller, director of internal audit and appointed treasurer/collector positions.
“The team that they already assembled is fantastic,” Plante said, but added, “We need to add more support like analysts and accountants.”
Plante also said the city is looking to appoint a permanent treasurer/collector within the next month. The current candidate is going through treasurer/collector school now, according to Plante.
The creation of the CAFO position reflects the city’s effort to modernize Holyoke’s financial operations, strengthen internal controls, improve long-term planning and ensure taxpayers receive an accountable and transparent government.
The position is designed to provide executive leadership for the city’s financial operations while improving coordination among finance-related departments, according to the mayor’s office.
The position will oversee strategic financial planning, budgeting, treasury and collection operations, procurement and purchasing, financial reporting, capital planning, and organizational performance while helping ensure consistent fiscal management across City Hall.
Plante was initially hired in Springfield in 2007 as the budget director under the state-imposed Financial Control Board when the city was on the brink of bankruptcy, facing a $41 million deficit and junk-bond status. He served as Springfield’s CAFO for 16 years before stepping down in 2023 and moving to the private sector.
After Garcia asked him to apply for the position, Plante said he thought the job sounded like a good opportunity to work with a team he’s familiar with.
“Is it going to be messy? Sure, as we try to develop how all of this is gonna work; build out policies, procedures, operations, build out internal controls to make sure everything is in place and just build up the IT infrastructure, and there’s just a lot of challenges that just were intriguing,” Plante stated.
Plante said a goal of his first year is to adequately staff the department. He also said he would like to reconcile the cash from the past few fiscal years and work with the Department of Revenue to certify free cash for the community for projects and/or other investments.
Plante stated that so far, closing previous years’ books is going well. He said the state is assisting Holyoke in that endeavor.
The new CAFO also said that he and the city want to implement a capital improvement plan and issue debt and bonds to improve Holyoke’s infrastructure and capital assets.
“I have tremendous experience in this industry, 25 years in state municipal government, and basically, I’m here to help and provide whatever services I can provide through financial and operation perspective to help the city be able to further enhance core services by investment and also save the taxpayers’ money on the tax rate and anything else in between,” Plante said in a message to the city.
