Finance director of Brooksville quits

By DAN DEWITT

© St. Petersburg Times, published August 3, 2000

BROOKSVILLE -- Lee Huffstutler, Brooksville's finance director for the past 51/2 years, announced this week that he is leaving the city to take a similar job in Temple Terrace.

Huffstutler will stay with Brooksville for two more weeks, City Manager Richard Anderson said, long enough to complete a draft of the budget for the upcoming fiscal year, which begins Oct. 1.

Huffstutler, who was not available for comment Wednesday, will be hard to replace, especially because accountants are in particularly high demand in the current job market, Anderson said.

The city is offering a starting salary of between $40,000 and $45,000, Anderson said, an amount typically paid to accountants fresh out of college. In addition, the city is asking for 10 years of experience, at least some of it in public finance, and prefers a master's degree.

"So if you're really good and you get all your degrees you come here and take a pay cut," Anderson said jokingly.

"Like most of our other staffers, we need someone who wants to come here for other reasons: challenge, opportunity, lifestyle or having family and friends here," Anderson said.

Huffstutler received about $50,000 annually, Anderson said, and recently received a retroactive 5 percent pay raise because he has been serving as acting human resources director since the summer of 1997.

He is leaving, Anderson said, because Temple Terrace offers higher pay and more responsibility.

Brooksville is now in the market for both a finance director and a human resources director, he said.

If Huffstutler's departure is causing an unstable circumstance, he stabilized the position after he arrived in late 1994, when he became the third person to hold the job that year.

"I think he did a good job, and he did a good job taking over human resources when we asked him to," said council member Joe Johnston III.

© St. Petersburg Times. All rights reserved.