City of Butler officials will be receiving additional assistance with their finances, thanks to the help of Jason Ross, the city’s new chief financial officer.

Council voted unanimously on Thursday, June 26, to approve an employment agreement for Ross as CFO for the city. According to Mayor Bob Dandoy, the agreement will go in effect on July 1 and last for one year.

“Everyday it becomes more and more evident that we need somebody in here who goes above our pay grade. Who has the knowledge to tell us how to structure things as we move into budgeting, especially with the various buckets that we draw money from,” Dandoy said.

The decision came some months after the city received roughly $90 million in proceeds from the Butler Area Sewer Authority sale. Of that sum, $75 million has been placed into investment accounts with PNC and NexTier banks, and the remaining $15 million will be used by the city under its long-range plan.

Despite this, Dandoy brought the idea of hiring a chief financial officer to discussion at the council forum meeting on June 12.

“We’ve all learned a lot through the course of this adventure, but we’re not experts,” Dandoy said at the forum meeting. “I want to make sure we aren’t making any missteps.”

Ross, a certified public accountant, previously worked with the city as a financial adviser in 2023, when the Butler Area Sewer Authority sale was an ongoing process.

“I’m very confident in the abilities of Jason,” Dandoy said at Thursday’s meeting. “He helped us very much with the decisions we made with investment firms that we use and... really made things clear for us.”

According to Dandoy, Ross will be paid $2,500 per month and is expected to work anywhere between four and six hours. If Ross works over eight hours in a month, a $250 an hour overtime pricing is applied.