The Town of Athabasca is officially on the lookout for a new director of finance now that the interim director has left his position.
Rodney Boyko’s last day with the town was July 27, and as such, the town has upped its search for his replacement through ads in the paper and on municipal hiring sites.
Boyko was first hired by the town in February.
“Rodney was brought in to do a few different things, which is to … clean up the books,” said town chief administrative officer Josh Pyrcz. “Council had (as) one of their strategic priorities (a) bylaw and policy review, so he’s been going through the policies and making recommendations to me, and also any other tasks that we’ve asked him to do.”
Boyko said he came in to go over the town’s financial statements for the audit, and he then continued to fix up the items that had been addressed in that process.
“The project is pretty much wrapped up,” he said “We still have some policy review and some bylaw review that definitely needs to be addressed, but I think we’ve got a great start on that now.”
Pyrcz acknowledged there is still some work to do and said administration would be keeping track of those items and dealing with them as they come up.
A large part of the project involved bringing forward old receivables and other outstanding issues to council, Boyko added.
Pyrcz said that Boyko had been hired as a company rather than an individual, and as such, his salary is “proprietary” information.
Boyko will be heading southwest, where he will take on the position of director of finance with Clearwater County, near Rocky Mountain House.
“I’ve always wanted to live in that area, so when the opportunity came up, it was one that I could not pass up,” he said.
“There’s no way that the town could compete financially with the package that he was offered,” Pyrcz said.
Boyko said his time with the town had been mostly positive.
“It’s been a good experience,” Boyko said. “The town is well-run and I think that it’s in really good hands with Josh as the CAO. Other than that, overall when you look at what’s happening in the town, there’s a lot happening, and a lot of good things.”
