Page 67 - CSJ - ADF - AMB 10 07 19

Jennifer Ferrer-Sanat Ines

Friday, September 27, 2019 1:35 PM

General Questions

1. Why are you interested in the ADF opportunity with the City of San Jose? Tell me a bit about what you
know about the City.

I am looking to go on an adventure a little bit. I am considering out of State. I have some family in the nearby
area in LA. Since my kids are grown, I thought I would venture out a little bit. Other than that the reason why I
selected San Jose ­ it is a much larger organization. I have worked for larger communities as well here, public
utility type organizations, I am looking to broaden my skillset. Working for a larger organization you have the
ability to enhance more around what you are doing and are able to engage in similar things that you would
with smaller entities but on a different level. I am looking to gain more experience from larger organizations.

2.Please describe your most recent position and day­to­day responsibilities.

Currently I serve as the Finance Director for a community serving 6,500. May day to day responsibilities
include overseeing the full facet of the finance department, make sure that our investments are diversified,
work with community and staff by any old budget, coordinating and working directly with the State auditors
office for the annual report and the audit. Manage staff who oversee accounting, payroll, AP, grants, fixed
assets.

3. How many employees do you supervise? Who do you report to?

Six employees. I report to the City Manager

Finance Questions

4. Please describe the ways in which you determine whether your organization is operating efficiently and
effectively.

Actually, because we are a small organization with limited resources we have to function very efficiently. I
supervise six, but three of those personnel are actually teachers and assistants and three of those are directly
finance accounting type personnel, even though there are just four of us in finance, it is a full service
organization, which means we are dealing with very much the same thing as a larger organization. We do take
advantage of the lean process. We tend to take a look at the way we process different transactions and see if
some of the steps are absolutely necessary, we also try to be efficient as possible by revealing which vendors
we're using, it's just kind of the way of how we do business here in our City because there are limited
resources, we are always looking at the transactions and how we process those to see if we can streamline any
of the steps or forego any of the steps.

5. Describe your experience in proactively managing the financial programs of an agency to ensure fiscal
transparency, stability, and efficiency, and to protect the agency’s financial resources.

I have been involved in providing access to Department Heads to have their own individual departments
financial information. I have worked with other agencies where departments are expected to monitor how
they are doing on a monthly basis. Everywhere where I have worked I have implemented the fact that all