Chapter Roundup - East Bay Chapter

Chapter Roundup – East Bay Chapter

By: Drew Corbett, CSMFO Past President

CSMFO members throughout the East Bay area of the greater Bay Area region convened for a chapter meeting at the Cherryland Community Center in Hayward on January 15th.  The meeting featured a networking lunch and an educational program and was well attended by our governmental and commercial members, with nearly 50 registrants.

The educational program was a panel discussion focused on the relationship between the City Manager and the Finance Director/Finance Department, with the objective being to provide finance professionals with insight on how City Managers evaluate issues from a finance perspective and the role the Finance Director/Department can play in supporting the City Manager in the execution of agency objectives.  Panelists included the City Managers from the cities of Union City (Joan Malloy) and Newark (David Benoun), along with their Finance Directors, Chu Thai and Krysten Lee, respectively.  The panel was moderated by Gloria del Rosario, who serves as Newark’s Deputy Finance Director, and I had the privilege of participating as well to provide some perspective as someone who has served as both a Finance Director and a City Manager.

A few of the topics of discussion included areas of natural alignment between City Managers and Finance Directors, as well as areas where their priorities may diverge; the City Managers’ perspective of what they need from the Finance Department to best support the operation; managing departmental issues and inter-departmental relationships; and navigating the political environment.  One of the major things that the City Managers emphasized throughout their remarks was how critical the Finance Department was to the operation and how much they relied on the Finance Director to keep them out of trouble!

The panel was also able to field some questions from the attendees, although the hour-long program moved very quickly and we were not able to address everyone who had something to ask.  As an indicator of how impactful this session was, I would estimate the panel could have lasted for another 30 minutes to cover all the questions.  East Bay Chapter Chair Chu Thai and Vice Chair Krysten Lee deserve a lot of credit for developing such a creative and innovative program for this chapter meeting, and I know the members of the East Bay Chapter are very much looking forward to what they come up with for the next chapter meeting.

Drew is the Principal of DKG Consultants, a firm he started in 2023 upon retirement after nearly 20 years in local government.  Drew started his municipal government career in Sunnyvale in 2005 as a budget analyst, and later became the budget manager/assistant finance director. In 2013, Drew was hired by the city of Menlo Park to be its finance director, and in 2015, Drew left Menlo Park to join the city of San Mateo as its finance director.  In 2016, Drew retained his title of finance director while adding the title of assistant city manager.  In his new capacity, Drew took on oversight of the information technology department and managed special projects on behalf of the city manager.

In late 2018, the San Mateo City Council appointed Drew as the city manager, where he served through June 2023.  In this role, Drew led the operations of a full-service city with over 600 full-time equivalent employees and over 105,000 residents.  During his time as city manager, Drew also served as the chief administrative officer of the San Mateo Consolidated Fire Department, a Joint Powers Authority that provides fire protection and prevention services to the cities of San Mateo, Belmont, and Foster City.

Drew earned his Master of Business Administration from the University of Wisconsin-Madison and has a bachelor’s degree in political science from the University of the South.  Prior to entering the public sector, Drew spent two years as an elementary school teacher in Compton, CA as part of the Teach For America program, and five years as a senior analyst/project manager with the Intel Corporation in Santa Clara, CA.

Drew has served on the Board of Directors for the California Society of Municipal Finance Directors and was the organization’s President in 2017.