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In latest City Hall departures, head of finance, chief operating officer are leaving

The city of Boston's chief financial officer, Emme Handy, is leaving her post.Craig F. Walker/Globe Staff

With a new acting mayor installed, the departures from Boston City Hall continue, with Emme Handy, the city’s chief financial officer, and Patrick Brophy, the chief of operations, leaving in coming weeks.

The two Cabinet-level exits mark the latest City Hall shake-ups. Other officials have left their posts in recent weeks amid a mayoral transition that saw Martin J. Walsh leave to become the nation’s labor secretary and Acting Mayor Kim Janey become the city’s first Black and first female chief executive.

Justin Sterritt, currently budget director, will succeed Handy as CFO, responsible for all “aspects of financial management” for the city, starting April 16, which is Handy’s last day, according to the Janey administration.

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Handy has worked for the city for three years and will return to the Broad Institute of MIT and Harvard, a Cambridge research center where she previously worked. At the institute, she will serve as senior adviser to the chief operating officer.

“Emme has overseen the budget soundly and thoughtfully for a number of years and I thank her for her contributions to the City of Boston,” Janey said in a statement. “The experience she brought to the City of Boston from state government and the Broad has proved critical, especially as she had to navigate uncharted waters over the past year.”

As CFO, Sterritt will oversee a number of city departments, including those responsible for assessing, auditing, the budget, community preservation, human resources, labor relations, purchasing, registry, the retirement board, collecting, and the treasury, according to Janey’s administration.

Brophy, meanwhile, will be succeeded as operations chief by Dion Irish, currently commissioner of the Inspectional Services Department. Next month, Brophy starts a new job as senior director of external affairs in the Northeast for Suffolk Construction. His last day as COO for Boston will be April 16.

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Boston’s chief of operations oversees three major departments: Public Facilities, Inspectional Services, and Property Management. Brophy has served in that role since 2015 and has worked for the city for 26 years.

“It’s not an exaggeration to say that the people of Boston have benefited tremendously from Pat’s work, which future generations will continue to enjoy,” Janey said in a statement.

Other recent departures have included Karilyn Crockett, Walsh’s equity chief, who was rumored to be mulling a mayoral bid before she ruled out such a run. Walsh’s chief of staff, Kathryn Burton, his chief of policy, Joyce Linehan, and the city’s corporation counsel, Eugene O’Flaherty, also left City Hall.

Additionally, Walsh’s economic development chief, John Barros, recently handed in his resignation and announced he was running for mayor.




Danny McDonald can be reached at daniel.mcdonald@globe.com. Follow him @Danny__McDonald.