The director of Honolulu’s Budget and Fiscal Services Department, Rix Maurer, is leaving his post, according to incoming Managing Director Doug Chin.

“I think he is choosing to end his time,” Chin said Thursday. “We asked him to stay but I think you can talk to Rix about that. Rix is being very cooperative, he’s really helping out with the transtiton.”

Mayor-elect Peter Carlisle said he and Chin have spent much of their time since the Sept. 18 special election discussing human resources. However they’ve been tight-lipped about any changes or specific steps and have been reluctant to disclose who they’re meeting with or who makes up their transition team. Both men cite the short timeframe before Carlisle is sworn in on Oct. 8 as a constraint. While Carlisle has indicated they’re working with former Honolulu Managing Director Bob Fishman, Chin said members of the transition team would not want him to “publicize” their identities.

Chin told Civil Beat in an interview that the focus has been on meeting with department directors like Maurer, a process he said he’s “really enjoyed, actually.” Maurer joined the administration of former Mayor Mufi Hannemann after the 2008 election. Before that, he served as vice president of Financial Services at The Queen’s Medical Center.

“It’s a very interesting time for the city,” Chin said. “The different directors bring a lot of institutional knowledge to the table. A lot of them are excellent resources for us. I think it would be very foolish for us to go in, frankly, as a new mayor and a new managing director to go and bring in all of our own people. That would make no sense at all.”

Knowing that Maurer — and likely many others — are leaving presents the next challenge for the Carlisle administration: finding the right replacements.

“We want to have someone in place who’s a great (Budget and Fiscal Services) director,” Chin said. “That’s critical for our team, so we’re trying to go to former BFS directors, other people who are in that industry, to really get a good sense of who would be the right person for that.”

As to when that information will be made public, Chin wouldn’t say.

“I think it will come out more slowly,” Chin said. “I wouldn’t expect to see a lot of big director announcements at the swearing in.”