SAN FRANCISCO — After a 22-year career with the city of Seattle, longtime finance director Dwight Dively is moving on.
He won’t be moving far, though — only two blocks separate Seattle’s city hall from the King County executive office, where Dively will head the county’s Office of Management and Budget.
Dively’s move comes amid shifts atop both governments. After November’s election, new chief executives took office at both the city and county.
At King County, Dively will work for new County Executive Dow Constantine.
“Dwight has a well-deserved national reputation for managing budgets and improving bond ratings, and I am thrilled to have him join our team,” Constantine said in a news release. “His mission here will go well beyond working on the annual budget. Our entire team is looking forward to tapping his expertise as we design long-term reforms that put King County on a sound financial footing, now and into the future.”
Both King County and Seattle have across-the-board triple-A ratings for their unlimited-tax general obligation bonds.
Dively had been Seattle’s finance director since 1994, serving four different mayors, including Mike McGinn, who was elected in November.
However, McGinn reshuffled Dively’s portfolio, keeping him in charge of debt management and financial policy development and adding authority over the city’s administrative department, but assigning the lead role in the budget process to Beth Goldberg, who had previously worked in the King County budget office.
Seven of Seattle’s nine City Council members issued a joint statement wishing Dively well and lamenting his departure as a loss to the city.
“In Dwight, the city is losing an individual with vast institutional knowledge who has kept us afloat in down times and steered an efficient course in the good times. The city’s loss is the county’s gain and I wish Dwight all the best with his new challenges,” said council member Bruce Harrell.
Dively will start his new job next month. The county’s current acting budget director, Toni Rezab, will remain as deputy budget director.
