Marin County taps new director of finance

Mina Martinovich, a veteran of county finance, has assumed a brand new function as head of the division after taking the reins from her boss, who retired after greater than 30 years this spring.

Employed by Roy Given in June 2011, Martinovich served seven years as assistant director of finance earlier than being named director final month. Her annual wage is $235,102.

Given retired as director of finance — a job that included the posts of auditor, controller, treasurer and tax collector — in April and moved along with his spouse to Sonoma County, near his son and daughter who dwell in Rohnert Park.

He mentioned he determined retire when he did in order that he may assist look after his 9-month-old granddaughter. That allowed his daughter to return to her job as a kindergarten instructor in Novato.

Given mentioned the one factor he disliked about working for the county was commuting to work from Novato.

“I actually favored what I did,” he mentioned. “I simply discovered one thing that I felt was extra necessary to do with my time.”

A local of Novato, Given grew up one in all eight youngsters. His father labored as a cab driver and his mom was a homemaker.

“My father labored actually laborious,” Given mentioned. “He didn’t make nice cash, however we at all times had sufficient to eat. He was capable of save and purchase a home. It confirmed me how necessary it was to work laborious.”

Given believes that having a guardian at house watching over him and his siblings was necessary. “I believe that made an enormous distinction in the way in which we grew up,” he mentioned.

After working his approach by way of faculty incomes a bachelor’s diploma in accounting from Sonoma State College in 1990, Given switched to accounting after initially finding out laptop science as a result of it was troublesome for him to get entry to the pc lab and work on the identical time.

Shortly after graduating, Given started working for Marin County as an entry stage accountant. He labored his approach up, first to senior accountant, then tax supervisor, then chief deputy auditor-controller after which assistant treasurer-tax collector earlier than being appointed director of finance in 2011.

A giant a part of Given’s job, and considerably surprisingly, his favourite half, was interacting with members of the general public who had questions on their tax payments.

“No person likes paying taxes or not getting info they want,” Given mentioned. “I don’t like paying taxes, and I’m a tax collector.”

Given takes pleasure, nevertheless, in the truth that when members of the general public left his workplace, “more often than not they not less than felt that they’d been helped.”

Throughout his sendoff, Marin County Administrator Matthew Hymel mentioned, “Roy exemplifies the rules of excellent authorities and customer support. There are such a lot of examples the place I’ve referred somebody to Roy, they usually’ve gotten their challenge taken care of as a result of Roy listened to them. They might not have beloved paying the method of paying taxes however they understood it.”

Like Given, Martinovich additionally labored her approach up the ladder to her present place.

She grew up in Belmont, and earned her bachelor’s in accounting from the College of San Francisco. Earlier than beginning work on the county, she labored for 4 years within the non-public sector for KPMG Worldwide Restricted, a multinational skilled providers community.

“There are issues that the county affords that aren’t financial that appealed to me,” Martinovich mentioned. “It’s not about making a revenue. It’s about working for the collective good. That’s one thing that resonates with me very a lot.”

Martinovich lives in Sebastopol along with her husband and two sons, who’re 6 and eight. She mentioned her husband was a firefighter however needed to retire on account of an harm.

“Issues occur for a cause,” Marintovich mentioned. “The silver lining is he has been capable of keep at house with our two boys.”

As finance director Martinovich leads a group of 61 full-time equal workers positions and manages an annual departmental price range of $10.3 million.

Because the county’s chief fiscal officer, she is charged with sustaining the accounts of county authorities, the county’s college districts, and the handfuls of particular districts inside Marin County. She administers the county’s main monetary, budgetary, payroll, fastened asset and tax apportionment/assortment methods.

Given mentioned, “The supervisors made a great choice by hiring Mina. She labored actually laborious. I’ve nothing however good issues to say about her.”