Ana Matosantos has a number of firsts on her resume. She was the youngest, the first Latina and the first openly gay person to hold the position of Department of Finance director.
She was also the first finance director to serve two governors of different parties.
Matosantos grew up in Puerto Rico, the daughter of a businessman and a high school administrator, and received a bachelor's degree in political science and feminist studies from Stanford University in 1997. After graduating, she spent two years working at the San Francisco-based Equal Rights Advocates, a public interest law firm that focuses on women’s rights.
She considered law school, but instead began her state government career as a consultant to the Senate Committee on Health and Human Services and as the human services consultant to the Senate Committee on Budget and Fiscal Review. Matosantos moved to the executive branch in 2004 as a member of the Health and Human Services Agency, where she served as an assistant secretary for programs and fiscal affairs and associate secretary for legislative affairs. In 2007, she became deputy legislative secretary for Health and Human Services and Veterans Affairs in the office of Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger where she worked on the administration’s comprehensive health care reform proposal.
From April 2008 to December 2009, Matosantos was the chief deputy director for budgets.
Republican Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger appointed Matosantos, a Democrat, finance director in 2009. She was reappointed director by Governor Jerry Brown in January 2011 and 10 months later was arrested on suspicion of driving under the influence, pleaded no contest to driving while over the legal limit for alcohol and was sentenced to three years probabtion.
She resigned her post in September 2013.
State Fiscal Exec Rolls Up Sleeves (by Wyatt Buchanan, San Francisco Chronicle)
Political Odd Couple United by Crisis in California Budget (by Jennifer Medina, New York Times)
Official Biography (DOF website)
CA Finance Director Pleads No Contest to DUI Charge (by Andy Furillo, Sacramento Bee)
