Local Government and Fiscal Specialist
An accomplished former City Manager and finance official, Andy Okoro has more than 32 years of diverse experience in the administration and management of local government functions and programs. He spent 20 years with the City of Norco, CA, serving nine years as the Deputy City Manager and Director of Fiscal and Support Services before serving eleven years as the City Manager. During his tenure in the finance role, he effectively administered the day-to-day tasks of the Fiscal and Support Services Department and led in the development and implementation of policies and guidelines. These resulted in effective budgeting, long-term financial planning, and award-winning external financial reports. As City Manager, Mr. Okoro led the City of Norco through strategic organizational restructuring and long-term financial and operational decisions that resulted in a more than tenfold increase in the City’s General Fund reserves while building resilient enterprise and internal service funds. Mr. Okoro also significantly reduced unfunded pension and other post-retirement liabilities. Two of the most impactful initiatives he implemented in Norco were contracting out the City’s fire department services and passing a one-cent add-on general revenue measure. As of June 30, 2022, the revenue measure was generating $8.8 million annually for the City, while over $3 million in annual savings were being realized as a result of the fire protection and emergency services contract with Cal Fire.
Prior to joining the City of Norco, Mr. Okoro held various high-level fiscal management positions with the City of Pasadena, the Southern California Regional Rail Authority (Metrolink Trains), and the Alameda Corridor Transportation Authority. At the City of Pasadena, he successfully managed the City’s accounting, financial reporting, internal audit, and procurement functions. At the Alameda Corridor Transportation Authority, he implemented and administered systems for controlling and monitoring the agency’s $2.5 billion program and operating budgets. These resulted in the on-time, under-budget, and successful completion of a $2.5-billion major rail project in Southern California.
Mr. Okoro is a licensed California CPA with a master’s degree in accounting from the University of Houston and a bachelor’s degree in business administration from Wichita State University, Kansas.
“Thank you very much for a comprehensive report. Thank you.”
Palm Springs
“Thank you so much for this training. This was the best PIO training I’ve ever received.”
S-403 Information Officer class participant
“We work with consultants, obviously, all the time, but the work that Citygate did on this report is some of the best I’ve seen in my tenure here.”
Retired Chief Administrative Officer San Diego County
“[Stu Gary’s] knowledge, expertise, and demeanor were invaluable in our efforts to ferret out a fair agreement with the City. I could go on and on about Stu, but you already know all of the superlatives.”
AAE, General Manager Monterey Regional Airport
“I was absolutely thrilled with the report because it was very comprehensive, very detailed. I call it the ‘time-in-motion study’ almost and some of the aspects [are] ‘how does your paper flow? How can you make your processes better? . . . As a government agency, how can we provide better service to the constituents?’ And to us we think that this study identifies those things down to all of the small paper processes and flows.”
Retired City Manager City of Vista, CA
“I think Citygate has done a great job. It seems like you’ve been most thorough and even-handed in your evaluations and you’ve given us certainly a lot of suggestions and guidelines to work with.”
City of Vista, CA