Healey Keeps McNamara On Board As Comptroller

By State House News Service | May 25, 2023, 17:18 EDT

Comptroller William McNamara. [Courtesy photo from State House News Service]

By Michael P. Norton
State House News Service

William McNamara, who took over as state comptroller just before the COVID-19 pandemic hit, is getting a full term in that job.

Governor Maura Healey on Wednesday appointed the Norwood native and former Fidelity Investments and Norton Company executive to the $185,000-a-year post, State House News Service has learned.

McNamara joined Governor Charlie Baker’s administration in 2016 as deputy commissioner of the Department of Revenue. Baker named him comptroller in February 2020, when he replaced Andrew Maylor, who resigned to take a job at Merrimack College. The comptroller’s term runs in sync with the governor’s term.

“Comptroller Bill McNamara has served the people of Massachusetts with distinction, particularly through the most tumultuous days on the COVID-19 pandemic,” Healey said in a written statement obtained by State House News Service. “He played a critical role in ensuring our state’s financial standing remained strong and securing supplies to support our statewide response to the emergency. Lieutenant Governor Driscoll and I are confident that he will continue his professional, collaborative leadership to support our state’s financial health and the hardworking employees of the Office of the Comptroller.”

The comptroller’s office is state government’s independent fiscal reporting agency, but the position is appointed solely by the governor.   McNamara and the Healey administration on Wednesday, May 24 touted their collaboration and partnership.

“Our office has strong partnerships with the executive branch, the Legislature, the office of the Treasurer and Receiver General, the Office of the State Auditor, and financial and administrative professionals across state government,” McNamara said.

Prior to his appointment as comptroller by Baker, McNamara had been working as assistant secretary for the state Executive Office for Administration and Finance, where he was in charge of oversight of the Department of Revenue, the Group Insurance Commission, and other state agencies.

In addition to operating the web site of the Commonwealth’s Financial Records Transparency Platform, which provides information about state government employee salaries, the comptroller also filed the state’s annual financial report. That report is due by October 31, but has been late for six straight years due to the state legislature’s habit of extending budgeting decisions beyond the date a fiscal year ends.

Last year, McNamara needed until December 23 to file the Statutory Basis Financial Report for fiscal 2022, which ended June 30, 2022.

McNamara and previous comptrollers have urged lawmakers to pass the annual close-out supplemental budget bill by the end of September to give their teams and outside auditors sufficient time to prepare the report.

Before a 16-year run at Fidelity that began in 1992, the Williams College (1984) and Tuck School of Business at Dartmouth (1990) graduate was the senior business analyst in the office of the chief financial officer and controller of the Norton Company in Worcester. After leaving Fidelity in 2008, McNamara worked at the investment management firm F-Squared Investments in Wellesley and did some consulting before joining state government at the Department of Revenue.

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