T.J. Plante upon his exit from Springfield (via Springfield City Hall)

The process of retooling Holyoke’s fiscal machinery had lumbered along for several years. Yet, it has hit its stride after the City Council elected last year took office this past January. Among the changes, the city’s once diffuse financial functions are consolidating under a Chief Administrative & Financial Officer (CAFO).

On Monday, Mayor Joshua Garcia said Timothy Plante, a career municipal finance official, would be Holyoke’s inaugural CAFO. If that name sounds familiar, it is because Plante had held the same office in Springfield for nearly 11 years. He left for the private sector in 2023, but clearly the siren song of modernizing another Valley city’s modern financial apparatus has drawn him back into the public sector.

“I really want to get back in the game,” Plante said, adding, “I love the idea of helping urban cities turn around. I think I fell in love with it when I came in with the Control Board.”

The legislature installed the Finance Control Board in Springfield over 20 years ago amid a fiscal crisis. It administered tough fiscal medicine to the city. It also established a foundation that has kept Massachusetts’s third city on an even fiscal keel.

Although demographically and economically similar to Springfield, Holyoke had avoided such mismanagement and revenues crises—at least for a time. The city experienced deficits in some accounts and cash management issues. Budgets were routinely presented with deficits that were filled later with free cash made up of unspent funds from the prior fiscal year.

Reforms were slow to pass and some proposals were unlikely to help at all. Garcia, a professional municipal manager by trade, proposed budgets that phased out deficits. Still, the state Department of Revenue (DOR), which oversees local finances, continued to identify problems, some dating back decades. It called for much more significant reforms, which Holyoke has now adopted.

In a statement on Facebook, Garcia said the appointment of Plante reflected the longer-term strategy of “professionalizing” City Hall and strengthening fiscal stewardship.

Mayor Garcia in 2021 running as a town administrator. Now, he has a chief administrative *and financial* officer of his own. (WMP&I)

“Timothy brings the experience, leadership, and collaborative approach needed to help us continue moving in the right direction that was mandated by the voters,” Garcia said. “I look forward to working with him, alongside our dedicated City employees and the City Council, to keep building a stronger, more accountable, and more effective local government.”

For Plante, it will be familiar territory. After leaving Springfield, he began working for a consultancy. Plante provided municipal financial support to areas like Brockton, Southbridge and the Southern Berkshire Regional School District. (He had been advising Holyoke on its financial management transition as well.)

Although not originally looking to return to the public sector, Plante said he had been aware of the Garcia administration reforms. After mulling over an offer, he called the mayor back and said he was in.

Speaking to WMP&I by phone, Plante explained part of the attraction to the Holyoke job was being on the ground floor of the new system Holyoke is developing.

“They have to build this whole team out and then they have to train them all,” he said. “If I can be part of it, that’s fantastic.”

Arguably one of Plante’s more important legacies in Springfield are durable fiscal and financial processes. It certainly took time in Springfield to do that. Some work began even before Plante got there. Still, time has shown that that setup has held up even after his 2023 departure. By all accounts, the fiscal ship is running smoothly under Plante’s successor in Springfield, Cathy Buono.

Plante seeks to follow up his Springfield performance with one in Holyoke. (images via Google image search)

Plante said building relationships with stakeholders from the mayor to councilors to departments is crucial. It is not just communication, but understanding. The financial department can get to yes if both sides in a conversation know where the other is coming from.

“It comes down to policies and procedures,” he said. That is, “Making sure there are strong procedures in place and are implemented with fidelity.”

At that point it becomes much clearer how to get the CAFO’s certification on a spending request or a bond authorization. In other words, councilors, for example, come to the financial department—as is common in Springfield—and ask how to get something done, not simply demanding it be done.

“Once you start establishing that, the rest will take care of itself,” Plante said.

Unlike in Springfield, the City Council must confirm Holyoke’s CAFO. (Plante noted that Hoyloke’s Council has slightly more power than Springfield’s.) Given the margins that have backed the Holyoke’s financial reforms, his confirmation seems likely. City Hall sources indicated to WMP&I that Plante should not face much difficulty before the Council, barring unforeseen circumstances. The Council has a meeting on its calendar next week.

The Reminder, which first reported Plante’s appointment, also reported that City Council President Tessa Murphy-Romboletti had participated in the final round of interviews. She endorsed Plante’s selection, adding that the creation of the CAFO office was “a long-time coming.”

Plante understood this as well. After years of debate, the city has adopted significant changes, including many the DOR has urged all along, and is making them real.

“It took a little while, but I like that they had this vision for trying to change it up,” Plante said.