Denver's finance director retiring

Daniel J. Chacon, Rocky Mountain News

Published January 29, 2007 at midnight

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Margaret Browne, Denver’s finance director, is retiring from the city after a 27-year career.

"I just wanted to do something different," Browne, who has accepted a job at Denver Health as manager of business development and financial planning, said today.

Browne, whose retirement is effective Wednesday, earned $123,612 annually, according to the Career Service Authority.

She will make $105,000 at Denver Health, a spokeswoman said.

The Denver City Council is scheduled to adopt a resolution tonight recognizing Browne and her work at the city.

Browne, 55, started working at the city in November 1979 as a policy analyst in the Budget and Management Office, which she would later oversee.

Former Mayor Wellington Webb appointed Browne finance director in 1999. Mayor John Hickenlooper reappointed her in 2003.

Browne said she told Hickenlooper last year about her plans to retire and that she gave him notice in late November.

"It’s about giving somebody the opportunity to start the budget process fresh," she said. "It’s (also) a good time to go because I didn’t want to go through another budget."

Browne almost didn’t stay in Denver. She said she applied to work with the World Bank and be an adviser to local government in South Africa, but the program was discontinued.

"I was offered the job three years ago ... but I turned it down," she said. "That was the beginning of the Hickenlooper administration. That was a time of pretty severe financial stress, and it just didn’t seem like the right time to go."

Browne said a charter change approved in November that modernized the city’s century-old financial structure had little to do with her decision to leave.

"But it is an opportunity for the city to move forward with a whole new structure," she said.

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