GREENFIELD — Following the resignation of former Finance Director Stella Chan, Weston Public Schools’ Assistant Superintendent for Finance and Operations at Stephen Nembirkow has taken the helm of the city’s Finance Department.

Nembirkow, a licensed Massachusetts attorney with more than 25 years of experience with municipal finance leadership, will be the third person this year to assume the role since Diana Parsons left last spring. Chan was hired in July and Nembirkow took over the position on Dec. 2.

“I am excited to once again serve the residents of Greenfield and return to Franklin County,” Nembirkow said in a statement. “I hope to bring a sense of stability, value and efficiency to the position and overall financial operations.”

While serving 13 combined years as director of human resources and finance for Chicopee Public Schools, Nembirkow supervised fiscal management and payroll functions for a district with more than 1,100 employees and a $110 million budget.

“Stephen Nembirkow’s extensive experience overseeing municipal financial operations will be a great asset to the city,” Mayor Ginny Desorgher said in a statement. “His familiarity with the region and attention to detail are tremendous, and I look forward to collaborating with him on our city’s financial practices.”

Following his work in Chicopee, Nembirkow transitioned to working in Franklin County, serving as director of finance and business operations for the Mohawk Trail and Hawlemont regional school districts for less than a year before becoming the Greenfield School Department’s business manager from 2018 to 2020. He most recently worked for Weston Public Schools.

Nembirkow said he decided to return to Greenfield to spend time with family after the death of his father, former Greenfield Superintendent Basan “Buzz” Nembirkow. He said that in his new role, he hopes to stabilize Finance Department staffing following a year of significant turnover at City Hall. He also aims to cross-train staff, equipping each employee with transferable skills in the event that they must fill in for a resigning staff member.

“It’s really just getting the team set, filling the positions, ending and moving forward with that, because there’s been a lot of flux around here in the past year or so,” Nembirkow said on Monday. “We’re also looking at the processes streamlining — making sure we’re not in a position where only one person knows how to do the one thing and leaves.”

Nembirkow said he will look for ways to automate some of the city’s more time-consuming financial tasks, such as budget-setting.

“There’s tremendous room for automation in a lot of our processes streamlining,” he said. “A lot of ways we could do that is through financial planning and analysis tools. For example, many, many hours are spent on the budget. If we’re able to create a single-source database for all the disparate information that we have — it’s not only the financial information, but how many vehicles do we have out there? What’s our capital planning out there? ... Rather than having a vast number of spreadsheets and throwing that into the budget, financial planning and analysis tools can help us consolidate everything into one database.”

Anthony Cammalleri can be reached at acammalleri@recorder.com or 413-930-4429.