Bill Ellis The City of Columbia is in the hunt for a new chief financial officer. The position is officially known as the director of finance. While the city slogs through its financial records and gets its books audited, recently running almost two years behind schedule, a new deputy director of finance has come on board. Before accepting Columbia's offer, CPA Bill Ellis cleaned up two neighboring sets of books, one in the schools of Fairfield County and another at South Carolina State University in Orangeburg.

Ellis was born in a hospital in Ridgeland, S.C., because that was the nearest hospital to where his parents lived in Hampton. His father owned and ran Ellis Realty & Insurance Agency. His mother continues to live in Hampton. She is a Hampton City Museum volunteer, and she runs the county school food service.

Ellis has a younger sister and a younger brother. His brother runs the family business, now associated with the Independent Insurance Agents and Brokers.

A former student of Mrs. Anderson's Kindergarten, Ellis attended Hampton Elementary, and he graduated from Wade Hampton High School. Ellis (or Moose, as he was called) played both guard and tackle on the Wade Hampton football team, losing to Mooney Player's Lower Richland for the state title his senior year. (Lower Richland that year also had Ernie Jackson, who starred at Duke and later the New Orleans Saints.)

Ellis majored in accounting at USC. He finished in four years, taking on all kinds of odd jobs to carry everyday costs and tuition. He delivered for UPS, pumped gas and changed oil for the Gulf station at the corner of Bull and Gervais, and did the same for the Esso station at the corner of Blossom and Huger. He even was a one-man Zamboni sans machine for the ice shows at the USC Coliseum.

Immediately after graduation, Ellis prepared for the CPA exam and went to work as an auditor for BlueCross BlueShield of S.C. He left BlueCross for Columbia- based Rogers Greggory Brigman & Co., CPAs.

Ellis spent two years as the comptroller for Coker College in Hartsville, and then he moved to the Holly Hill School District as their finance director.

He stayed inside public education when he relocated to Columbia and the State Department of Education, starting under Sup't. Cyril Busbee. He stayed through Busbee's successors Charlie Wilson, Barbara Nielson, and Inez Tenenbaum. His job title with the Dept. of Education was information resource coordinator II.

He was invited by the Fairfield School District to get their financial house in order. The term "severe audits" was included in his mission statement. Following the audits by Ellis bringing the Fairfield School District books up to date, five embezzlement indictments came down.

After the Fairfield County schools position, Ellis officially retired from the state. He helped the family business back in Hampton for a couple of years, and S.C. State University called to ask him to be their accounting manager. He stayed with S.C. State for four years. And then he was presented with another invitation to move and to take on behindschedule books, this time from the City of Columbia. His family consented.

Ellis met his wife Mary while competing in a bowling league in Columbia. They have two children. Their daughter Anne- Marie is a senior in theater at Anderson University, recently recognized as an "up-andcomer" by U.S. News &

World Report's annual college survey. Son John is a sophomore at USC Aiken with his sights on a degree in business.

Ellis keeps current in his field by taking at least 40 hours of continuing professional education annually. Among Ellis' more arcane and academic pursuits is GASB 34, which is an update for the government reporting module. As another recent development, fund balance accounting is being put on a quasi-business standard. And even more esoteric is the new risk assessment standard filtering through government finance circles as SAS 112, something of a government version of Sarbanes-Oxley, which is a storied post- Enron reform pain in the side among publicly held corporations.

While the City of Columbia searches for its director of finance, Ellis, the consummate professional, is putting the city's financial house in order.