Director, Priority Based Budgeting

Description

The Priority Based Budgeting Director is the senior consultant and strategic coach who leads a government client through the interpretation, application, and decision-making heart of Priority Based Budgeting. An Implementation Consultant is assigned to every engagement to run the data pipeline, operate the predictors, and own the client's data. The PBB Director is the lead on the engagement - the senior presence with the CFO, City/County Manager, or Budget Director, the person who turns predicted data into a defensible strategy, and the person accountable for whether a recommendation holds up when an elected official pushes back on it.

This is the most leveraged, outcome-focused component of a PBB engagement - the difference between a client that completes the technical steps and a client that changes how it budgets. Clients purchase this role for executive-level interpretation of program data, credibility in council briefings and budget hearings, lived experience of what comparable jurisdictions actually did, and the confidence to act that comes from a senior expert shepherding the process.

The ideal candidate combines consulting skill, public-sector fluency, strategic communication, facilitation talent, and comfort working with AI-generated insights - including the confidence to challenge model output rather than accept it.

Responsibilities

Executive Client Leadership:

• Serve as the senior relationship holder with each client's executive sponsor, conducting a personal check-in at minimum at the start and end of every phase.
• Sign off on the narrative and the numbers for all executive-facing material before it leaves an engagement, including the executive briefing to the City/County Manager, CFO, or Council.
• Own the recovery plan when a client satisfaction signal drops.

Engagement Leadership Across Implementation Phases:

• Phase 1 - Data Creation: Lead client-facing review of program inventory and costing. Guide departments on cost allocation, overhead, and time-allocation logic while the Implementation Consultant operates the orchestrator and supports as data expert.
• Phase 2 - Analytics: Lead benchmarking and insights review. Validate feasibility of AI-suggested opportunities, prioritize the shortlist, and ensure every recommendation is defensible in front of a CFO or elected official.
• Phase 3 - Applied: Co-design target budget scenarios with finance leadership and facilitate executive-level ranking of proposals and opportunities.
• Adapt session format to the client, phase, and stakes - onsite facilitated workshop, virtual working session, a series of shorter conversations, or asynchronous review followed by a decision call.

Insight Validation and Implementation Playbooks:

• Supervise interpretation of program benchmarks, process overlap analysis, and resource optimization insights from the AI insight engine.
• Review top savings and revenue opportunities against real peer case studies, judging each for local feasibility and political viability - not just arithmetic soundness.
• Facilitate accepted opportunities into AI-generated implementation playbooks with step-by-step actions, named owners, and timelines.

Quality and Process Governance:

• Conduct a formal phase gate review before any phase is marked complete, covering data outputs, client satisfaction signals, and confirmation that all phase deliverables are met.
• Approve any change to a client's contracted scope.
• Own and quarterly review the implementation playbook.
• Identify patterns across engagements and convert them into process improvements rather than one-off fixes.
• Log material decisions - scope changes, timeline adjustments, approach changes - with rationale and stakeholders.

Escalation and Reporting:

• Acknowledge Implementation Consultant escalations within four business hours and provide a resolution plan or join the next client interaction within 24 hours.
• Maintain a current view of assigned engagements: phase status, risk, milestones, and upcoming decisions.
• Deliver a monthly written update to the Director of Client Success covering engagement status, risk items, notable wins, and lessons learned.

Partnership with Client Success and Sales:

• Consult on scoping before it is finalized when deliverables, timelines, or resource commitments are uncertain, including flagging engagements that will require Director capacity beyond the baseline.
• Surface capacity signals to the Director of Client Success early, recognizing that assignment and capacity decisions sit with that role.
• Receive the sales-to-Client-Success handoff and hold Sales accountable for documenting commitments made outside contracted scope.
• Identify expansion and renewal opportunities that extend a client's PBB capability, and support close-out, retrospectives, and super-user clinics.
• Thought Leadership and Practice Building:
• Contribute to the practice's public voice through conference presentations, written pieces, webinars, and case studies drawn from assigned engagements.

Qualifications

Education

• Bachelor's degree in Public Administration, Finance, Business Administration, Economics, or a related field.
• Master's degree (MPA, MPP, or MBA) preferred.
• Professional credentials such as CPFO or CGFM (GFOA), or ICMA Credentialed Manager, are a plus.

Experience

Required:

• Extensive experience in local government finance, budgeting, management consulting, or public-sector advisory, including direct experience presenting to executives or elected bodies. [HR: confirm year range for job leveling.]
• Demonstrated facilitation skill with senior stakeholders in politically sensitive settings - able to hold a room, surface a hard trade-off, and drive to a decision without losing the room.
• Real familiarity with how comparable governments have approached these problems: what was tried, what worked, and what it actually saved.
• Track record of mentoring or elevating other practitioners as a senior peer, without relying on positional authority.
• Strong analytical fluency: able to interrogate a cost allocation, spot an implausible result, and explain the method in plain language to a non-technical audience.
• Comfort operating in AI-supported delivery, with the confidence to challenge model output rather than accept it.
• Excellent written communication - a clear brief, a clean summary email, and a defensible one-pager are core outputs of the role.

Desired:

• Direct Priority-Based Budgeting experience, as a practitioner inside a government or as an implementer.
• Familiarity with municipal ERP/GL structures and the realities of extracting usable data from them.
• Experience with performance management or community sentiment platforms (Envisio, Polco, or comparable).
• A public track record - speaking, writing, or teaching in the public finance community.

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