Orange County’s chief financial officer is taking over as acting CEO for the foreseeable future this week as county supervisors can’t agree on who to pick for the job long term.
Outgoing CEO Frank Kim told county officials he was leaving last November, and his last day overseeing the $9.5 billion county government will be this Thursday.
At 5:01 p.m. that night, Chief Financial Officer Michelle Aguirre will take over.
It all comes after OC Supervisors couldn’t agree on a replacement in the seven months since Kim announced his retirement.
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Aguirre has served as CFO for nearly a decade and worked at the county even longer.
She also was one of the top candidates approached by county leaders to take over as permanent CEO when they started searching for Kim’s replacement.
But Aguirre turned down the job and told county leaders she will not take it permanently, according to County Supervisor Don Wagner, who said he asked Aguirre to take over the job last week.
“She doesn’t want it permanently, and we want to respect that,” Wagner said in a Monday evening phone interview. “We’re all very comfortable with Michelle.”
Because Aguirre is the next in line to serve as interim CEO with Kim’s departure, the board of supervisors doesn’t need to vote to appoint her to the position.
Aguirre did not return a request for comment on Monday evening.
While she fought against taking the job, it remains unclear how long she’ll have it for, as county leaders have publicly struggled for weeks to name a permanent replacement.
That deadlock has raised questions from some observers, noting that while it’s one of the premier public policy jobs in the country, there aren’t many people applying for the spot.
At least three observers have also been raising concerns the process has been overly politicized.
Last month, supervisors privately were reportedly discussing appointing the manager of a small special district to run the county, with the head of the Orange County Employees Association, Charles Barfield, reportedly pushing supervisors on her behalf ahead of the vote.
Barfield did not respond for comment on Monday morning.
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While Aguirre declined to apply for the permanent gig, other local leaders did as well.
Irvine City Manager Oliver Chi, one of the most prominent city managers in the county, said he was approached by recruiters about the job and turned them down.
And most of the county’s executive team didn’t apply for the job, according to one source with a list of the applicants.
Noah Biesiada is a Voice of OC reporter and corps member with Report for America, a GroundTruth initiative. Contact him at nbiesiada@voiceofoc.org or on Twitter @NBiesiada.
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