By DUSTIN RACIOPPI
Bruce Loversidge can go back to retirement. Again.
Red Bank’s former chief financial officer and go-to guy to fill in for his outgoing successors will be relieved of his interim duties at the end of the month.
In speedy fashion, the borough has hired Spring Lake Heights’ financial chief to take over the post last held by Frank Mason, who left last month to become CFO in Montclair.
Colleen Lapp, 42, will begin her new job in Red Bank on August 29, pending approval by the council Wednesday night, Mayor Pasquale Menna said.
Lapp will also serve as tax collector, a duty the borough had been outsourcing to Fair Haven at $5,000 a year, Menna said.
She will be paid $93,000 annually, he said.
Lapp, a Villanova University graduate with 20 years of experience in municipal finance, was chosen from a pool of three candidates the council had seriously considered, Menna said.
“We had a lot of candidates for the job and ultimately we narrowed it down to three who (interviewed) very, very well,” he said. “She had high marks from everybody.”
When she saw the Red Bank job posted on the League of Municipalities website, she jumped at it, Lapp told redbankgreen.
“I’m looking forward to new challenges,” Lapp said. “I think Red Bank is a very unique town on its own, and I think that’ll be able to flow over into my job and I can use my talents.”
Loversidge has played the fill-in more than once since retiring. In 2006, he came back to hold the spot abruptly vacated by Terrence Whalen amid complaints of sloppy bookkeeping. Loversidge, who lives in Avalon, has been working on a part-time, per diem basis since Mason left at the end of July.
Menna said he doesn’t anticipate ringing Loversidge up again anytime soon, and the borough wanted to get a full-time finance head in borough hall soon as possible.
“You don’t want to keep these things hanging,” Menna said, adding, if a person meets the qualifications, “let’s move on it. Otherwise you just keep people in limbo. Let’s put people to work.”
