City names new finance director
Royal Oak officials have hired a new city finance director who will step into the job next month.
Debra Peck Lichtenberg, a Farmington resident, is coming to Royal Oak after five years as the director of finance and operations in Grosse Pointe Farms.
“We’re really pleased to have somebody of her caliber and financial expertise joining our organization,” said
City Manager Paul Brake.
Lichtenberg starts her job in Royal Oak on June
15. She replaces former longtime city Finance Director Julie Rudd, who announced her retirement earlier this year.
Lichtenberg has a bachelor’s degree in business and accounting from the University of Michigan and is a certified public accountant.
Before working in Grosse Pointe Farms, Lichtenberg was the budget director in Westland, and formerly an assistant city treasurer in Novi.
She started her career as an auditor for Plante & Moran, PLLP, in Ann Arbor.
“I’m really excited about coming to Royal Oak,” Lichtenberg said. “It’s such a diverse community …I think the culture of the city is very progressive and everyone has already been very welcoming.”
Her work in the larger cities of Novi and Westland, along with her job in Grosse Pointe Farms, will be an asset to her financial work in Royal Oak, Lichtenberg said.
“I think my background is somewhat unique,” she said. “I started my career in the public accounting field on the other side of the table as an auditor for local governments.”
Similarly, Lichtenberg added that her municipal work has given her a depth of experience working with a variety of communities of differing socio-economic backgrounds.
“One of the major roles for a finance director is ensuring that
the taxpayers’ dollars are being used in a way that meets the needs and goals of the community,” she said.
While many residents in Royal Oak and in other communities seldom follow the activities in the finance department, it is the nexus for all money spent under the policies and obligations in the city.
The finance director oversees the department’s staff along with the expenditures from the many levels of funding from property taxes, millages and other sources that fuel public services.
“The finance director is really the chief financial advisor to myself and the City Commission,” Brake said.
Lichtenberg in Royal Oak will be the point person of the city’s overall budget of nearly $200 million and 39 different operating funds, Brake added.
Royal Oak and other cities statewide for years have complained about two state laws — the Headlee Amendment and Proposal A.
Regardless of millage rates and property value increases in a community, the two state laws prevent cities in any given year from assessing property taxes greater than 5 percent or the rate of inflation, whichever is less.
“In the current municipal finance environment we’re faced with a number of challenges,” Lichtenberg said of the state constraints under Headlee and Proposal A. “As municipal finance professionals we have had to focus on how we can spend the tax dollars in a way that protects the services a resident expects and deserves from their local government.”