Dean Kaplan
Managing Director

Email:

kapland@pfm.com

Business Specialty:

Financial Management
Strategic Consulting

Office:

Philadelphia
Two Logan Square
18th & Arch Streets Suite 1600
Philadelphia, PA 19103
Phone: 215-567-6100
Fax: 215-567-4180

Dean Kaplan is a Managing Director with Public Financial Management, and a leader of the firm's Strategic Consulting practice. At PFM he has worked on multi-year planning, budgeting and budget oversight, and operations improvement efforts for cities and counties around the United States. His clients at PFM have included Austin, Texas; Baltimore, Maryland; Nassau County, New York; Wake County, North Carolina; Aurora, Colorado; Portsmouth, Virginia; and the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania's Department of Community & Economic Development. Pennsylvania has appointed Mr. Kaplan recovery plan coordinator for the cities of Pittsburgh and New Castle, which is in the state's distressed municipalities program.

Mr. Kaplan joined PFM after a year in the United Kingdom with the Atlantic Fellowships in Public Policy. Before being awarded the fellowship, Mr. Kaplan was Budget Director for the City of Philadelphia. His professional experience also includes service as Deputy Commissioner of the Philadelphia Water Department, Government Affairs Manager for both the Philadelphia Water Department and the Philadelphia Streets Department, and Legislative Director for a U.S. Representative.

As an Atlantic Fellow, Mr. Kaplan was selected by the British Government to undertake research in England, Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland on key aspects of local government service efforts, including performance measurement, citizen and stakeholder consultation strategies, and adoption of the national government's Best Value program. He also served on an Improvement & Development Agency peer review team for Lancaster City Council in northwest England, joining senior British local government officials to examine Lancaster's performance. Based at the Institute of Local Government Studies at the University of Birmingham, Mr. Kaplan lectured regularly on local government structure and performance management.

Prior to his fellowship, Mr. Kaplan was Budget Director for the City of Philadelphia under Mayor (now Governor) Ed Rendell. In this capacity Mr. Kaplan led the development and implementation of a $4.5 billion annual all-funds budget for the nation's fifth-largest city, resulting in record levels of fund balance. As Budget Director he supervised the preparation and publication of key fiscal monitoring documents, including an annual Five Year Plan and quarterly managers' reports, and established and monitored service-level goals and performance measures for all City departments. Under his leadership, the Mayor's Report on City Services was published for the first time. Mr. Kaplan's responsibilities also included setting capital spending levels, managing the executive branch's City Council appearances on budget issues, and serving on key Administration management and oversight bodies.

Before becoming Budget Director, Mr. Kaplan was Deputy Commissioner for the Philadelphia Water Department, serving as chief financial officer and head of policy planning for one of the nation's largest publicly-owned water/ wastewater/stormwater utilities. Appointed following a period of financial turmoil, he headed efforts to restore the agency's financial stability and creditworthiness, culminating in a $1.1 billion new money and refunding issue and the Department's first borrowing from the state's environmental infrastructure revolving fund. He also directed a successful application for a rate increase and supervised the resulting management review of the Water Department. Mr. Kaplan convened a citizen panel to help reallocate stormwater costs, chaired a multi-agency evaluation of long-term structural options for the utility, led a workgroup for the Mayor's strategic planning process, and sponsored a case study for one of the water industry's first-ever process benchmarking projects. During this time, he also served as a member of the Subcommittee on Finance, Accounting and Management Controls of the American Water Works Association's Financial Management Committee.

Earlier in his municipal career, Mr. Kaplan analyzed and evaluated alternatives for new solid waste disposal contracts at Philadelphia's Streets Department and developed the Philadelphia Water Department's government affairs office.

In the mid-1980s, Mr. Kaplan was Legislative Director for U.S. Representative Bob Edgar. He supervised the Congressman's legislative staff and operations, with particular responsibility for Public Works & Transportation Committee issues, including water resources authorizations, Clean Water Act Amendments, mass transit and capital budgeting. He helped Congressman Edgar organize successful House floor amendments to Superfund hazardous site cleanup legislation and appropriations bills.

Mr. Kaplan holds a Master in Public Administration degree from the John F. Kennedy School of Government at Harvard University and a Bachelor of Arts degree with honors from Haverford College. He has also attended the London School of Economics & Political Science and has taught at the Fels Center of Government at the University of Pennsylvania. Mr. Kaplan has served as an evaluator for the Ford Foundation's Innovations in American Government Awards.