Longtime Los Angeles County Chief Administrative Officer David Janssen informed the Board of Supervisors said on Tuesday that he plans to retire in January after 10 years on the job.

Janssen, 61, was appointed by the Board of Supervisors following the resignation of Sally Reed in 1996. The county had just managed to avoid bankruptcy after the health department’s budget imploded. Over the next 10 years, Janssen and the Board largely held the line on spending, putting the county on more solid fiscal footing.

In his letter, Janssen praised the board of supervisors for their prudent fiscal management, which “has made my job of managing the budget very easy.”

However, Janssen leaves office with the health department still in turmoil. The federal waiver that had bailed out the county in 1995 is set to expire next year, leaving the health department with a deficit in the hundreds of millions of dollars. And a long-running management scandal at King-Drew Medical Center has also taken its toll.