Tablack gets job as CFO in Alabama

July 18, 2012 at 12:00a.m.

Tablack

Former Mahoning County auditor and administrator George J. Tablack has been hired as chief financial officer of Jefferson County, Ala., at a salary of $180,000 a year.

The county commissioners there hired him for the newly-created position Tuesday by a 4-0 vote, with one commissioner absent.

Tablack will start work as an at-will employee serving at the pleasure of the commissioners after he passes a pre-employment background check, and he’ll get all the benefits of full-time county employment, said Diane Townes, clerk of the commissioners.

Tablack was first elected Mahoning County auditor in 1986 and stepped down in July 2005 to become CFO in Palm Beach County, Fla.

However, in November 2005, he returned to Mahoning County as budget director, adding the title of county administrator here in May 2006.

In May 2010, he received a one-year contract with both titles, with a $103,899 annual salary less 10 percent in the form of an unpaid holiday every two weeks.

In May 2011, the Mahoning County commissioners declined to renew his contract.

Tablack’s new job in Birmingham will require him to wrestle with more than $4 billion in debt in the county that, last November, filed the largest local- government bankruptcy in U.S. history.

Tony Petelos, who became county manager there in October, said Tablack won the job after a national search that produced dozens of applicants because of his experience with the bond market and in managing budget crises.

Tablack spent many years managing Mahoning County’s budgets during financial crises caused by on-again, off-again county sales taxes, whose fate was decided by the voters.

Tablack could not be reached to comment on his new appointment.