LITTLE ROCK — After 33 years as North Little Rock’s finance director, Bob Sisson said he is putting off retirement a little while longer to help the new mayoral administration get started.
Sisson, 72, wants to retire, but said he needs togive Mayorelect Joe Smith more time to hire a replacement while getting his administration in place after Mayor Patrick Haysleaves office Dec. 31 after 24 years.
“I really don’t have a timetable,” Sisson said in a recent interview about his pending retirement. “Shortly. But I’ll work with Joe. Whatever he wants to do. I’d say it’s not too distant in the future.”
Smith, elected mayor in a runoff Nov. 29 over state Rep. Tracy Steele, said that he’s relieved to have Sisson willing to continue for a short while to handle the city’s finances - something Sisson has done since former Mayor Casey Laman’s last stint in office in 1979-80.
“It would have been monumental,” if Sisson were to leave in early January, said Smith, who takes office Jan. 1. “God bless Bob Sisson for coming in and stepping upand saying he’d stay to keep an eye on things till we get someone hired and brought up to speed.”
Overseeing the city’s finances, Sisson said, is a difficult task to grasp because it’s a combination of several financial duties.
“We have business type activity in the [city owned] electric department,” Sisson said. “You have collections with utilities accounts. There’s just all kinds of accounting here. So it’s large. We have over 30 city departments. All want more money.”
Having Sisson remain during the transition into Smith’s administration, Hays said, will make that process “a thousand times easier than it otherwise would have been.”
“Bob’s professional expertise, along with his ethical standards, have been extremely beneficial,” Hayssaid of working with Sisson on preparing annual budgets and managing city finances. “I’m very proud we have not had any criticism, justifiable or otherwise, of any mismanagement of public funds.
“There will be people who argue about how we spend it, but not about the ethical nature of how we operate,” Hays said.
Hays added that in his 24 years in office, he and Sisson have been in agreement on budget priorities “99 percent of the time.”
“And that 1 percent I probably regretted,” Hays said.
While he has no specific date for leaving his city job, Sisson said, he added that hewants to have more time at home with his wife, Connie, and more opportunity to be with his 2-year-old granddaughter, Kailey, and to go fishing.
Whenever that retirement day comes, Sisson said he’ll know.
“I grew up on a farm [near Des Arc] and have worked all my life,” Sisson said.
“It’s time I rested a little bit.
“I don’t want to put a timetable on it,” he added. “I guess, really, that’s between Joe and my wife.”
Arkansas, Pages 7 on 12/24/2012