CBJ Bids Farewell to Outgoing Finance Director Jeff Rogers

The City and Borough of Juneau will bid farewell tomorrow to Finance Director Jeff Rogers, who leaves Juneau for Portland, Oregon. Rogers joined CBJ in 2019 and has since managed four CBJ budget cycles and staffed nearly 80 Assembly Finance Committee meetings.

“It’s a big loss to the city,” said City Manager Rorie Watt at a CBJ farewell potluck today. “He’s brought us so much great energy and personality and talent and drive. [He’s] a stellar municipal employee, doing all he can to make what we do at CBJ better.”

Assembly Finance Committee Chair Carole Triem echoed the sentiment at Rogers’ final Finance Committee meeting on June 7, noting that he “has done an impeccable job of translating some really complicated things into words and graphs this Assembly can understand, which is not an easy thing to do.”

In addition to the herculean achievement of overseeing the annual budget cycle, Rogers recently guided CBJ to an AA+ bond rating from S&P and made major strides in leveling the playing field for local sellers by requiring remote sellers to pay CBJ sales tax.

Rogers also guided CBJ through the uncertainty of COVID-19, not only ensuring that the sudden influx of federal funding was managed responsibly but also securing a smooth transition back to the norm once that funding was no longer available.

Outside the Finance Department, Rogers played a key role in the evaluation process that resulted in CBJ achieving a perfect score in the Human Rights Campaign’s Municipal Equality Index for two consecutive years.

Today Rogers said, “There’s a lot of incredible people in the Finance Department and the City… Juneau’s government works and I feel blessed to have worked here. If I made anything even a little better I’m thankful for it.”

Rogers completed a Master of Fine Arts degree at Yale University in 2007. Afterward, he worked in business administration for the university while studying at the Yale School of Management. He moved to Juneau in 2009 to take up the position of Managing Director of Perseverance Theatre before going on to positions with the Alaska Senate Finance Committee and the Alaska Department of Environmental Conservation.