A finance veteran will take over for Iowa City’s longtime finance director.

Dennis Bockenstedt has been hired as the city’s new finance director, City Manager Tom Markus announced this week.

Bockenstedt will succeed Kevin O’Malley, who is retiring Jan. 31 after 27 years with the city, including serving as finance director since 1999.

Bockenstedt, who will start in mid-February, has more than 20 years of public-sector accounting and finance experience, Markus wrote in a memorandum to the City Council. He has been finance director in Hutchinson, Kan., since December 2010, and previously served in the same role in the Iowa towns of Burlington and Ankeny.

Bockenstedt’s salary will be $120,019 annually, according to the city. O’Malley’s salary is  $139,610.