Sean Cowan Resigns Role As Leelanau County Finance Director/CFO

Leelanau County is back to square one in its search for a finance leader.

Sean Cowan, who has been the county’s finance director since June – and who took on the newly-created position of chief financial officer (CFO) for the county government just weeks ago – has officially resigned his position with Leelanau County.

The Leelanau Ticker confirmed the news with Leelanau County Board of Commissioners Chair Ty Wessell on Sunday afternoon.

“I got an email from [Cowan] on Friday [October 20], saying that he was resigning,” Wessell says. “I have not yet talked to him, but I know we're meeting tomorrow [Monday] as a finance committee to consider next steps.”

The finance committee is a newly-formed entity within the Leelanau County government, added at the same time that Cowan was offered the CFO role. The idea with that change was for the CFO to receive direction on financial matters from the finance committee, which is made up of Wessell and commissioners Douglas Rexroat and Melinda Lautner.

Those structural pivots occurred earlier this month, after Cowan submitted a separate letter of resignation to County Administrator Deb Allen in late September. In that letter, Cowan expressed concern that he did not have “the resources, authority, staff, or executive support necessary in order to be successful in the finance director role as we originally defined,” and suggested that the county needed to commit to more transformative change to proceed effectively. Wessell then led an effort to keep Cowan with the county, proposing the creation of both the CFO role and the finance committee.

Cowan initially agreed to accept the CFO job, describing the shake-up as “a great opportunity” to move things in the right direction. “I think that the development of this role and placing it at the right level to support what you need as commissioners is the most important mission that I’ve seen since the start, and I think this is a great step towards that,” Cowan said.

Now, though, Cowan is out, becoming the fifth person to hold and vacate the finance director role since it was first brought online as part of the Leelanau County government in January 2022. (Read the Leelanau Ticker's full timeline of the county’s finance department woes here.)

When asked whether the board will attempt to talk Cowan into rescinding his resignation for a second time, Wessell says such an approach is unlikely.

“That would not be my wish,” Wessell says of keeping Cowan around for another try. “We did it once, and I hoped it would work, and I had a lot of respect for him. But obviously, it’s not the right fit. [The finance committee] will have a recommended plan for the board by mid-afternoon tomorrow.”

The county has officially posted a notice about the Monday finance committee meeting, which is scheduled to take place at 3pm on Monday afternoon in the commissioner meeting room at the Leelanau County Government Center.

Cowan could not be reached on Sunday afternoon for comment about his reasons for resigning.