Cambridge city department heads: Asst. city manager-fiscal affairs Louis DePasquale

Louis DePasquale

Cambridge, MA Louis DePasquale is the assistant city manager for fiscal affairs. He has been serving the city for over 33 years. His primary responsibilities are to develop financial policies and strategies that support the goals set forth by the city council which allows the city to provide a high quality of service to its businesses and residents, maintain a strong current and long term financial position, and maintain an awareness of decisions made and the impact of those decisions on taxpayers. He is also responsible for the fiscal operations of the city and overall leadership for the following department functions: budget, personnel, assessing, purchasing, treasury, revenue and management information systems.

Over the past 4 years, the city has had an annual, efficient budget growth of 4%. DePasquale attributes this as a real team effort between the city administration, city council and department heads, limiting the annual budget, year after year. Also, there is an understanding of the implication of increasing the property tax levy and the impact it has on taxpayers which is an essential ingredient of the budget guidelines. There is also an expectation that the city must provide a high level of services that Cambridge residents expect as well as to meet the city council goals.

DePasquale and his staff understand the importance communication between the city government and its businesses and residents. When people have access to the information that directly affects them, they tend to participate and value their community. Every year the administration, budget, assessing, and revenue departments collaborates to publish and distribute three separate brochures explaining the city budget, property values, and real estate taxes, and abatements and exemptions to the businesses and residents of the city. For the 20th consecutive year, the finance department has received the government finance officers award for excellence in financial reporting for their annual comprehensive financial report.

DePasquale is very active in the community as he is a member of the city's capital improvement budget committee, the Cambridge Kids Council, the Cambridge Health Alliance Board of Trustees, and the Community Preservation Act Committee (CPA).