Finance & Accounting Consultant- Municipal Technical Advisory Service; IPS; Nashville, TN

Finance & Accounting Consultant
- Municipal Technical Advisory Service (IPS) (Nashville, TN)

Nashville, TN, United States (Hybrid)

Serves as a finance and accounting consultant providing professional advice and technical assistance in the area of municipal financial management to cities in Tennessee. Services are provided regardless of size, on a broad range of issues and problems, to Tennessee municipalities and to various State agencies, Tennessee Municipal League staff, to individual state legislators, as well as various state associations of municipal officials.

In addition to providing direct client assistance, this position researches, develops, and maintains timely technical reports and publications on critical financial issues. This position also develops and teaches municipal training courses, teaches CMFO program courses, and assists other consultants in the agency in the performance of individual and team projects. Performance of other special project work as assigned may be required.

This position requires extensive travel.

General Duties - Provides professional advice and technical assistance primarily to appointed and elected municipal officials. Provides advice and assistance for non-city clients such as elected and staff members of the Tennessee General Assembly, employees of state agencies, staff of the Tennessee Municipal League, and officers of associations of municipal officials. Professional advice and technical assistance covers a broad range of issues and problems at the request of the officials.

A project may be as complex as comprehensive utility rate studies, capital budgeting, creating a purchasing department, long range financial planning, identification of new sources of revenue, or as simple as providing the answer to a question or assistance in completing a form. Develops and maintains close working relationships with both appointed and elected city officials for assigned cities. This includes time at city hall, phone calls, emails, research, travel and writing time.

Develops, updates, and instructs training courses for city officials. Teaches CMFO program courses. Maintains an area (or areas) of specialization and serves as the in-house expert to MTAS staff in areas - such as chart of accounts, capital budgeting, purchasing, liaison with state agencies, or utility rate studies. Often serves as official MTAS representative to an association of city officials.

Researches, drafts, and maintains publications on critical issues that are geared to various reader levels of financial sophistication and expertise, including articles for the Tennessee Municipal League's newspaper, Tennessee Town and City, technical reports, and publications for municipal officials, and employees.

Reference Material Update - Maintain and update agency databases which are utilized by internal staff as well as external clients.

Administration and Professional Development - Includes team meetings, agency meetings and retreats, IPS meetings and retreats, maintaining records on all relevant activities, including the agency databases for work products from projects. Includes activities related to keeping current in the fields of expertise. This involves time at professional meetings and conferences, seminars and training classes, professional reading, and computer training.

Required Qualifications:

Education:

Bachelor’s in Accounting, Finance, or a related field (Master’s Preferred)

Experience:

With a bachelor's degree, this position requires eight years of work experience in a financial related position with five years of governmental accounting experience.

With a master's degree, this position requires five years of work experience in governmental accounting.

Skills:

Requires knowledge and understanding of issues dealt with by city officials. Must have the skill and knowledge of municipal financial operations to establish credibility and effective working relationships with local officials. Must have the ability and knowledge to adapt from simple financial and accounting tasks to high level and complex financial and accounting issues. The consultant must…