Consultant recommends re-running Sumner County finance director search, stresses CPA requirement

Sumner County officials agreed April 30 to ask a recruitment consultant to re-run the search for the county’s finance director and to make the requirement that the director be a certified public accountant explicit in outreach materials.

Warren Huter of Humpton Consulting, who addressed the county’s Financial Management Committee, said the firm had cast a wide net with national and regional advertising but had found a smaller-than-expected pool of candidates and that the CPA requirement in the county charter was a limiting factor. “I was under the impression initially that being a certified finance officer or a CPA is a requirement and I was wrong about that. So it has to be a CPA,” Huter said.

Huter told the committee that salary had not surfaced as a major barrier among candidates but that relocation concerns and housing costs were limiting applicants who would need to move. He recommended updating the recruitment brochure, emphasizing the Nashville metropolitan area in advertising to reach a larger local pool, and posting again on specialized sites such as the Government Finance Officers Association and accounting association outlets. Huter said the firm would relaunch the posting as soon as the following Monday or Tuesday and that the second posting would not incur additional charges for the county.

County leaders asked questions about outreach, relocation assistance and timing; the consultant advised proceeding now rather than waiting until after local elections. The committee did not take a formal hiring action at the meeting; Huter’s recommendations are intended to expand the applicant pool and return a set of CPA-qualified candidates for the county to interview.