MIAMI BEACH (CBSMiami) – Miami Beach is another step closer to finding a replacement for outgoing City Manager Jorge Gonzalez.

Kathie Brooks, Miami Beach’s budget director since 2004, has been picked to run the city on an interim basis after Gonzalez leaves next month.

Brooks was nominated by city commissioners earlier this week and was officially approved at a meeting on Wednesday.

Brooks will lead a city that must renegotiate union contracts, push forward a massive convention center redevelopment project, and restore public trust following April’s public-corruption arrests of code and fire inspectors.

Brooks, 52, is a University of Miami alumnus and longtime Miami Beach resident.

She prepared the city’s approximately $500 million operating and capital budgets this year and is preparing next year’s budget. She helped negotiate Miami Beach’s expiring union deals and is familiar with the city’s still-ballooning pension obligations.

She is also a member of the committee analyzing development teams’ submittals to qualify for Miami Beach’s potentially $1 billion convention center district project.

Brooks beat out five finalists to win the nomination for interim manager.

Before coming to Miami Beach, Brooks worked for two decades in Miami-Dade County government in the transit, solid waste and performance improvement offices. She said she turned down an offer to be the county’s planning and zoning director to become Miami Beach’s budget director.

She grew up in Kingston, Jamaica, and is married to former Miami Beach building director and current Miami Lakes Town Manager Alex Rey.

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