City Hall is losing two directors who spearheaded the budget process and the Community Resilience department, along with a violence prevention program manager, each of whom is taking a new job. According to the city’s latest weekly personnel report, Shannon McCue stepped down from her role as budget director and policy, management, and grants director on Friday, June 19, while Community Resilience Director Tirzah Kemp and Violence Prevention Program Manager Jaquoi Belin are both leaving their city roles on Friday. According to Mayor Justin Elicker, each of these individuals left for new job opportunities. “It’s always bittersweet when you have fantastic staff that move on,” Elicker said, “because you have to find someone new to take on the work that they’re doing, but you’re also very happy for them.” Kemp was appointed in February 2024 as the second-ever director of the city’s Department of Community Resilience, a department that the Elicker administration created during the Covid-19 pandemic to serve vulnerable populations with a focus on homelessness, prison re-entry, violence prevention, and mental health. She had previously worked as a vice president at the local nonprofit Clifford Beers. Starting July 1, the Department of Community Resilience director position will move from the special fund to the city’s general fund. Kemp told the Independent on Monday that she’ll be the executive director of a nonprofit, which she said she can’t name at the moment. “I loved the work at City Hall. I loved being able to be of service to other communities. I loved the relationships that I built,” Kemp said. “This was an opportunity that was really aligned with my values,” that would continue her “commitment” to the “community,” and would provide “an opportunity to lead a statewide initiative,” she said. McCue was appointed in August 2024 to helm the city’s budget process and lead the Office of Management, Policy, and Grants. She came to the role with a deep background in municipal credit rating. McCue told the Independent that she has left her city job for “personal reasons.” “I had a long commute and I decided it was no longer sustainable,” McCue wrote in a message. “It was primarily a quality of life decision.” Reflecting on McCue and Kemp’s departures, Elicker described McCue as “an incredibly hard worker” and “a joy to work with” who helped the city implement new grant management software. The mayor also said that Kemp “worked very hard to support the challenges that the city has faced, like many others, of people experiencing homelessness.” The Independent could not reach Belin by the publication time of this story. Kemp and Elicker both stated that he is also leaving for a new position. Belin led the city’s Program for Reintegration, Engagement, Safety and Support, or PRESS, a gun violence prevention program that was created by the Elicker administration in 2022. He was first appointed to the role in May 2025. According to Elicker, Community Services Administrator (CSA) Eliza Halsey and Deputy CSA Carlos Sosa-Lombardo will both work to continue supporting the initiatives for which Kemp and Belin have been responsible until the city hires replacements. Meanwhile, Deputy Director of Policy, Management, and Grants Ron Gizzi will be filling in for McCue until the city hires a replacement, Elicker said. Kemp and Belin’s departures will leave further vacancies in the city’s Community Services Administration. Earlier this year, Homelessness Services Coordinator Velma George retired and Food Policy Director Latha Swamy was fired over alleged misuse of a city credit card. “There’s not a significant number of people” in the Community Services Administration, said Elicker. “And so when a handful of them, for different reasons, move on, it always presents more of a challenge to put more pressure on other folks in the department to do a lot of work. But we’ll be working to hire people as we can to fill the positions.” The post City Budget, Resilience Directors Resign appeared first on New Haven Independent. ...read more read less