Shannon Esenwein has been named as the city of Ceres’ new finance director, replacing Leticia Dias who was terminated for undisclosed reasons.

Her appointment was ratified by the Ceres City Council on Monday evening.

Dias, who was finance director since April 2020, was placed on administrative leave as of Sept. 1. Because the act of placing an employee on administrative leave is a personnel matter, City Manager Doug Dunford won’t say what led to the sudden departure.

To take the job she is resigning as Chief Finance and Operations Officer for the Stanislaus County Community Services Agency where she oversaw a budget of $334 million and 130 employees.

The city of Ceres will be paying her a salary of $13,492 per month, or $161,904 annually. 

Esenwein earned her associate degree in Business Administration and Management from San Joaquin Delta College in Stockton and her bachelor’s degree from Cal Poly in San Luis Obispo in 1998. She worked for two private auditing firms and served as deputy auditor-controller for San Joaquin County for 13 years. From April 2015 to February 2019 she was Hughson’s Finance and Administrative Services Director. She left Hughson to work for the city of Arroyo Grande where she served as director of Administrative Services/Treasurer for 10 months. She resigned Nov. 15, 2019 from the Arroyo Grande job and took a pay cut to become Stanislaus County’s Deputy Director of Parks and Recreation.

A year and two months later Esenwein was the Chief Finance and Operations Officer for the Stanislaus County Community Services Agency, a position she had for less than three years.

Esenwein ran unsuccessfully for San Joaquin County auditor-controller against incumbent Jeffery Woltkamp in June 2022.