Leigh Wallace joined the city of Georgetown as its finance director Feb. 8.[/caption]

When she graduated from Trinity University in San Antonio, political science major Leigh Wallace said she was unsure about what to do with her degree. After consulting with her Trinity advisers, the Oklahoma native attended The University of Texas at Austin, where she received her master’s degree in public affairs from the Lyndon B. Johnson School of Public Affairs. While at UT, Wallace was also a Blodgett fellow in urban management.

During her time at UT, Wallace took a course in city management from former Austin City Manager Toby Futrell, and said she found meaning in working to make a difference in the community in which she lived.

Upon leaving UT in 2008, Wallace gained more than seven years of experience in city finance, most recently working in the budget office for the city of Austin before starting as the finance director for the city of Georgetown on Feb. 8.

Wallace oversees the city’s finance department and directs the annual budget process. Wallace is also working to implement a new financial software system she said she hopes will be used in Georgetown by 2018.

Wallace is also a member of The International and Texas city/county management associations.

City Council will begin the fiscal year 2016-17 budget process in July and is expected to approve the budget in September. The fiscal year begins Oct. 1.

What do you love about your job?

You are central to the organization, and you work with everyone [in city government.] What you do is central to everyone else’s services. You are always doing the same thing every year, but there are always new challenges that come up.

Every year is the same, but every year is different—and that keeps it interesting. [The changes year to year]keep it challenging, and that’s part of why I like doing this kind of work.

A second part of that is that I have just found all of the people here at the city of Georgetown [to be] really friendly, collaborative, good people to work with, and that is really nice, too.

What do you enjoy most about working in Georgetown?

Well, I have only been here four months, but I hope I get to stay a long time. What really drew me to Georgetown as a community and as an organization was that I was really looking for a smaller city that was less competitive and more collaborative as an organization. That’s why I’m here in Georgetown. I was looking for a challenge for me in terms of working on new parts of financial administration.

What are some challenges you face coming into this position?

The financial software system [is] old and not very functional. It does a good job of basic accounting and payroll, but it doesn’t do any of the modern functions you come to expect. It is just basic, and we are looking for a system that does a lot more and is going to be robust and more efficient. That was a big change for me coming from the city of Austin. They did not have a perfect system, but they had more modern ones.

With Georgetown being the fastest-growing city of its size in the U.S., what do you see as its challenges and opportunities? 

There is always going to be a demand for more resources than there are available, but I think Georgetown is positioned well.

We are in Texas, and Texas tends to have a healthy economy. I think we have a strong outlook, but growth and infrastructure tends to require issuing debt, so we will probably be issuing debt for those large road or building projects over the next few years.

We do have an AA+ bond rating, so we will get really good [interest]prices on issuing that debt.

I think we are in a good position to meet those growth challenges, and we are doing a lot to do that in a smart way.

What do you hope to accomplish in your new position?

[Finding and implementing] the new software system is really the No. 1 thing. My other goal is to make our financial processes as collaborative and transparent as they can be, both [internally] to the organization, but also [by] being transparent to the community.

[We are] trying to make it easier for [city-decision makers] and the residents to find information and use it effectively.

We are in the middle of trying to redesign the finance section of the [city] website as well—kind of [revamping] the information that’s there. There will be an initial push for that right before we post the new budget in July, but that will be an ongoing process.