Municipal Finance Professional Hired as NPR Finance Director

New Port Richey has hired a new full-time city finance director.

Douglas Haag was hired by City Manager John Schneiger and will start the job June 30, four months after the last full-time city finance chief quit. He will earn an annual salary of $77,000, Schneiger's office announced in a press release Monday.

Haag, 58, has 15 years of experience in municipal finance, according to the press release. He has managed finances for communities in South Florida and Michigan and advised governments while working in the private sector.

“New Port Richey is a great area with tremendous potential, and I’m happy to be part of it,” Haag stated in the press release.

Rick Snyder, the previous full-time city finance director, without publicly saying why. Snyder, who worked for New Port Richey since May 17, 1993, made $77, 800 annually.

, a consultant and former city official in Apopka, has been serving as interim city finance director. In 2005, Douglas faced controversy after he and other Apopka city workers were accused of buying and borrowing city-owned generators in the wake of Hurricane Charley in August 2004.

A formal complaint against Douglas regarding the allegation was dismissed by the Florida Commission on Ethics last summer.

Douglas served on a temporary part-time contract.

Haag’s most recent job has been to serve as interim finance director of the town of Lauderdale-By-The-Sea, according to his resume. He was first hired as a consultant and then served as interim finance and budget director. Before that, he managed the finances and served as assistant city manager for Sunny Isles Beach from September 2006 until he was laid off in March 2010. While there, he led the city to win the Government Finance Officers Association of the United States and Canada’s Distinguished Budget Presentation Award for multiple years.

He started in government as controller and treasurer of the Gibraltar, Mich., and then served as data processer for Bay City, Mich.  

He worked as an area and solutions manager for AMX International, where he built a local government consulting practice from 1999 to 2006. He worked for nearly a decade in the software industry in management  and customer service jobs.

“I’m honored to have Doug as part of my management team, and I look forward to working together for many years,” Schneiger said in the release.