Data and Forecasting Manager - FIN (SFPUC) - 1825 (161190)

City and County of San Francisco•San Francisco, CA

1d•Hybrid

About The Position

The Data and Forecasting Manager is a new position created to address a growing need for the agency to perform advanced statistical analyses, process and manage very large datasets of customer billing information, and generally provide professional-quality forecasts to support the increasing complexity of the agency’s financial modelling and rate-setting. The Data and Forecasting Manager will report to the Financial Planning Director and are one of two managers within the Financial Planning and Rates team, alongside the Rates Manager. This person will have the most technical role on the Financial Planning & Rates team. They are expected to have a strong foundation in data science, econometrics, and statistical methods. This includes a familiarity with the principles of database design and related IT infrastructure. As needed, the SFPUC’s IT and Strategy, Innovation, and Change teams will provide technical support for the implementation and design of the required data platforms and infrastructure necessary to support their work. Because this is a new position in an emerging area, the selected candidate will have an opportunity to build out the role and will have substantial ownership to set priorities and propose projects to meet the agency’s needs. While by no means exhaustive, the following two examples highlight projects and functions where the Data and Forecasting Manager is expected to play a key role: Beginning in the last few years, the Rates team now sets rates for the Power Enterprise, both Hetch Hetchy Power (a municipal utility) and CleanPowerSF (a Community Choice Aggregator). Power rates are extraordinarily complex, requiring analyzing massive amounts of data (ex. 15-minute interval meter reads for 400,000 customer accounts for a year). This data has previously been managed by consultants in large offsite data warehouses, and currently SFPUC staff do not have the skillset needed to manage and analyze it in-house. As the Power Enterprise’s customer base continues to expand, it is critical that the SFPUC be able to offer the advanced technical analysis to ensure that rates and financial investments meet the city’s climate goals, comply with significantly increasing regulatory requirements (ex. a requirement to offer power rates that change in real time to drive customer demand response), and meet the high level of customer service and reliability expected of a modern power utility. The SFPUC is faced with making major strategic financial decisions over a 20-50 year planning horizon that have billions of dollars of impact, and the Financial Planning team is increasingly being asked to provide analysis to support these decisions. For example, the team needs to forecast utility sales volumes to support decisions around what level of capital investments are needed in the long-term horizon to ensure the system meets expected population growth, while balancing the risk of incurring costs for existing customers today for future residents who may not materialize. Accurate financial forecasting and efficient planning today could save San Franciscans millions of dollars, while ensuring the agency complies with environmental goals, contractual obligations, and regulatory mandates. Finally, the Data and Forecasting Manger will directly supervise two existing analysts and work collaboratively with the entire Financial Planning and Rates team to train and develop relevant skills in-house and support sustainable, long-term personnel growth.

Requirements

Possession of a baccalaureate degree from an accredited college or university and seven (7) years of full-time equivalent experience performing professional level analytical work. Qualifying professional-level analytical work includes analysis, development, administration, and reporting in major programs and functions of an organization in the areas of budgets, contracts, grants, policy, or other functional areas related to the duties of positions in the 182X Class series.
Substitution: Possession of a graduate degree (Master's degree or higher) from an accredited college or university with major coursework in specialized subject matter areas such as public or business administration, management, business law, contract law, public policy, urban studies, economics, statistical analysis, finance, accounting or other fields of study closely related to the essential functions of positions in the Class series may be substituted for one (1) year of required experience.
Additional experience as described above may be substituted for the required degree on a year-for-year basis (up to a maximum of 2 years). Thirty (30) semester units or forty-five (45) quarter units equal one year.
Special Condition: Three (3) years of qualifying experience in database modeling and design.

Nice To Haves

Experience performing economic and statistical analysis, including forecasting or data science
Experience with cost-of-service analysis or utility rate-setting for water, power, or sewer
Experience managing or leading teams of analysts, and mentoring/training co-workers in technical areas
Familiarity with the City of San Francisco’s financial system, PeopleSoft Financials or the SFPUC’s customer billing system, Oracle Customer Care & Billing (CC&B)
Interest in the SFPUC’s mission and the use of utility rates and financial planning to support environmental and social goals

Responsibilities

Develops and maintains data warehouse of financial, billing, and customer usage information which will be a centralized source to pull into all Financial Planning team reporting, forecasting, and modelling
Coordinates with SFPUC IT and Strategy, Innovation, and Change teams to identify and implement new technologies required to automate and streamline data analysis
Leads modelling and forecasting of sales volumes, revenues, and expenses for Water, Power, and Sewer Enterprises in the agency’s Quarterly Budget Reports and 10 Year Financial Plan
Develops annual revenue forecasts and set budgets for the SFPUC’s three Enterprises and utility expense budgets for all other City departments
Performs statistical or econometric analyses as needed to improve forecasting reliability, both for standalone projects and ongoing working financial and rate models
Prepare data visualizations to communicate results of their analyses with internal and external stakeholders
Coordinates with Rates Manager to provide data and analyses for cost of service and rate studies for retail and wholesale customers of the SFPUC
Coordinates and tracks responses to all Financial Planning’s data requests, surveys, and performance metrics to implement standardized and centralized reporting
Serves as Finance representative for implementation of utility rates in billing system by SFPUC’s IT team and external consultants
Manages two analysts directly, and provides training for other members of the Financial Planning and Rates team to build out advanced data and statistical skills within the team
Performs other duties as assigned.