After 10 years as Chesterfield County administrator, Joe Casey will step down in July. (Photo by Ash Daniel)
If Richmond is pretty much always a hot mess, it’s hard to deny the stability, consistency and financial acumen of the surrounding counties.
This is especially true of the region’s largest jurisdiction, Chesterfield. One of the fastest-growing localities in the state — Chesterfield recently eclipsed 400,000 residents, according to census data — it’s a big job to keep the county and its 4,500 employees running on all cylinders. Particularly during uncertain times, like, say, a global pandemic.
For the last decade, Chesterfield County Administrator Joe Casey has done just that. The affable, soft-spoken Casey has kept the county government laser-focused on balancing budgets; bringing in new economic development; improving public infrastructure such as roads and schools; and keeping the steady, persistent creep of national politics at bay.
All the while, the county’s financial management continues to set it apart. Casey’s predecessor, the late Jay Stegmaier, who served from 2007 to 2016, was a highly regarded administrator and finance expert who helped Chesterfield become the first municipality in the state to receive AAA bond ratings from three bond-rating agencies. Under Casey’s leadership, last year Chesterfield became the first locality in Virginia to attain AAA bond ratings from four agencies.
Casey officially steps down on July 1. Chesterfield’s Board of Supervisors had yet to announce his replacement before Richmond magazine went to press.
We caught up with Casey, a certified public accountant who started working in local government in 1990 (in Hanover County and later Henrico County, under current County Manager John Vithoulkas) before becoming Chesterfield’s chief executive in 2016.
Richmond magazine: In Chesterfield, I’ve always felt there’s a concerted effort from the administration to stay apolitical, to not engage in the divisiveness that we experience everywhere now. How much harder is that today?
Joe Casey: We’ll get requests all the time, like, “You need to take a position on this topic,” or “Why aren’t you taking a position on that topic?” And what we try and remind people is, you know, we follow the laws of the state and federal government, whether we like them or not, and that gets into an opinion perspective. But do we have to follow the laws? The answer is yes. Do we go through processes, through legislative agendas, that formalize what we specifically don’t like as a body? [Yes,] but we really don’t deter from that legislative agenda. We don’t get involved in international topics like some local governments that are passing resolutions on something that’s happening internationally that they don’t like, or they support. The second thing that we try and do, at least as staff, is we don’t tell the board how to vote on something. We give them the information on a topic that leads to an informed decision.
RM: Is it getting harder to sort of navigate the current political environment, especially when people are constantly looking at the government as untrustworthy?
Casey: I mean, there’s no doubt about it. Is it harder because the lines [have blurred] between what federal thinks it can do versus what it can’t — state, as well? Again, there doesn’t seem to be this line as far as where local government thinks it can exert its authority further up the food chain. In fact, once it does, you almost become punished for that.
We really talk a lot about what we can and can’t do. The question is, “How much time do you want your local government spending on things it can’t control?” … I always tell even our new employees that we are the grandchild of the federal government and the child of the state. In fact, you know, the word “local government” is not in the United States Constitution. We are really defined wholly by what the state wants us to be or not be. I always also joke that, you know, we’ve been around since 1749 as a county. We’re older than the state of Virginia and the United States government, yet I’m living in my parents’ house and grandparents’ house and being treated like a little kid who has to clean their room every day.
RM: You made the comment when Stegmaier passed away in 2022 that you inherited a well-oiled machine. As you go into your next chapter, what do you think you’re leaving behind for the next administrator? Is it still a well-oiled machine?
Casey: I don’t think I broke the machine. So that’s always a worry for anybody coming in. [Laughs] That’s the first goal: Don’t break it. I think I was told that by a couple of workers when I came here, because I’m the outsider, you know, from Henrico and Hanover. I think what I did is take this well-oiled machine but also try to make it more engaging with the people. Just because you can add all these numbers together and financially show everything, it can get complicated real fast to the people. I think we try to make it easier to understand what we do and invite people in to see how we operate — you know, citizen academies or just a lot more citizen-based activities.
RM: Where did that come from?
Casey: I think it came a little bit from my Hanover and Henrico experiences. Like even the academy, the citizens academy — which again, is about 40 people twice a year — was something we started in Henrico County. It’s not just those 40 people. It’s those 40 people who tell 10 other people about what they know. So, there’s an extrapolation factor. We’ve done that almost for 10 years, and we have had over 700 people take these classes. … If we get asked the same question three times from three different people, we’re putting something on our website, or we’re writing a story about it. Those are the things that we didn’t necessarily do before because I think there was a divide between the complexities of what we did and trying to get people to understand them.
RM: What do you see as the big challenges facing Chesterfield? Is it managing residential growth? Is it keeping the tax base balanced? Is it, what?
Casey: I think you’re going to see it over the course of this next year, as they really go through the comprehensive plan as far as land use: What do the people want, as far as, you know, rural living? And how do you define rural living? What is suburban, what is urban, what is density? What do you want this county to look like and not look like over the next 25 years? And we’re going to deal with the variable, perhaps, of the state imposing what it wants us to look like. Again, some of it’s affordable housing, or the perception of what could create affordable housing. When I was first told about affordable housing, it was like, “Well, if the demand is greater than the supply, then that makes the supply cost more.” As you know, Chesterfield has thousands upon thousands of approved and zoned units. We’ve created the supply. What makes the private sector not build it? Or, if they’re building it, they’re building high-priced supply. So, the supply and demand, old-school economic formula is not the only way. We were initially told, “Give us supply and we’ll make it affordable.” That didn’t necessarily happen the way some had thought.
This interview has been edited for length and clarity.
