New finance chief is familiar ‘neighbor’
Municipal hires cross paths
MONTGOMERY TWP >> Knapp Road and Line Street are the border lines where Lansdale and Montgomery Township meet, and that border seems to be growing ever-thinner.
Brian Shapiro, formerly Lansdale’s finance director and more recently manager of Chalfont Borough, is Montgomery’s new Finance Director as of Monday, the third high official to work on both sides of that border in the past year.
“I think we’re lucky to have him, and really excited just to have him on board,” said supervisors Chair Tanya Bamford.
Local residents may remember Shapiro from his tenure as Lansdale Borough’s finance director from mid-2007 to June 2016. During that time, he helped maintain a long streak of borough financial reporting awards, modernized department software and procedures, set up online bill payments, oversaw three $10 million bond borrowings for capital projects, and developed
new tools for online transparency.
Since then, Shapiro has served as borough manager in Chalfont, and brings a total of 18 years in public finance to Montgomery Township, counting time in similar posts in Middletown Township and Northampton Township.
“He is absolutely the right person. Beyond his level of governmental accounting and finance, he brings a humanness to the position that’s needed,” said Township Manager Carolyn McCreary.
“He recognizes all of the competing interests of the various departments, and he’s sensitive to the fact that, when staff walk in the door, life doesn’t leave them behind. He’s a very good, hands-on manager, and I think he’ll be wellreceived by everybody,” she said.
McCreary and Shapiro have an inadvertent connection: Shapiro was McCreary’s successor in the Lansdale post, and will essentially do the same in Montgomery, as McCreary helped fill the finance position for Montgomery after the departure of prior finance director Ami Tarburton in August 2019. McCreary said Shapiro’s first day on the job was Monday, and she hopes Shapiro will keep Montgomery Township’s long streak of financial reporting awards intact.
“I started earning (reporting awards) in Lansdale, and he got them every year after,” she said. “There aren’t many people left who are involved in government accounting to the level that he is.”
Bamford said she was thankful McCreary brought her own financial background to the months-long discussions on the township’s budget last fall, and said adding another experienced hand in Shapiro can only help.
“We were fortunate that Carolyn has a finance background, so she was really well-equipped to step into that role pretty seamlessly,” Bamford said.
McCreary said the first thing on Shapiro’s to-do list will be preparation for the annual audit of the township’s 2019 financials, and several other actions authorized by the board Monday night should make that process easier. In a series of housekeeping motions, the supervisors voted unanimously to name McCreary to be the township’s Trustee for the Delaware Valley Insurance Property and Liability Trust, as delegate to the Montgomery County Earned Income Tax Collection committee with Shapiro as an alternate delegate, and authorized Shapiro and new supervisors Annette Long and Beth Staab to act as signatories on township bank accounts.
McCreary and Bamford both said one other township vacancy could soon be filled: the township’s post of Director of Fire Services, open since prior director Rick Lesniak left for Lansdale last fall, could be filled as soon as February.
“We’ve got another key piece of the puzzle in place, and it’s going to be wonderful, moving forward,” Bamford said.
Montgomery Township’s supervisors next meet at 7 p.m. on Feb. 10 at the township administrator building, 1001 Stump Road. For more information visit www.MontgomeryTwp.org.