BRIDGEPORT -- The Housing Authority's chief financial officer has resigned as the agency continues to grapple with a critical federal audit and no permanent director.<br /><br />Acting Director Jimmy Miller broke the news Monday to the authority's Board of Commissioners, whose members are still digesting last week's news that he had turned down a two-year contract to become the permanent director, after accepting the offer in November.<br /><br />"Seems like everything's a surprise lately," said Board Chairman Dulce Nieves.<br /><br />Miller told Nieves and her colleagues that John Pfeiffer submitted his resignation as Housing Authority CFO on Friday. Pfeiffer's last day is scheduled to be Feb. 21, and Miller said the position would be outsourced until a replacement is hired.<br /><br />There was no public discussion of the resignation by the board, but members were clearly surprised.<br /><br />"I am at a loss," said the Rev. Sulton Stack Jr., while leaving the meeting.<br /><br />In an interview afterward, Miller said Pfeiffer's decision was not related to an audit by the Department of Housing and Urban Development's inspector general, which questioned $1.6 million in expenses submitted to the federal government.<br /><br />Pfeiffer, who was not at Monday night's meeting, "had been contemplating leaving for some time," Miller said. "This is a very stressful job."<br /><br />Miller cited similar reasons behind his decision to turn down the offer to permanently run Bridgeport's public housing and to instead return to being deputy executive director with Elm City Communities, New Haven's housing authority.<br /><br />"After a lot of thought, agonizing, talking to residents, I truly don't want to be an executive director," Miller said Monday. "That job requires 12- to 16-hour days ... I think this is what's best for me and my own personal health."<br /><br />The Bridgeport Housing Authority borrowed Miller from New Haven last summer, following the sudden resignation of Executive Director Nicholas Calace. What began as a three-month assignment kept getting extended, until last fall the authority's Board of Commissioners, following a national search for an executive director, offered a two-year contract to Miller.<br /><br />He accepted the offer, but the contract was never finalized, and on Jan. 31, Miller broke the news to his staff that he planned to return to New Haven by the spring. He had not spoken to either his board or Mayor Bill Finch when Hearst Connecticut Media contacted him last week about his rumored resignation.<br /><br />At the time, Miller declined to explain his decision. But on Monday, he said he will be turning 62, and the birth of his now-7-month-old granddaughter and pending arrival of a second grandchild caused him to rethink how he would spend the next few years before retiring. His contract with New Haven is up in 2015.<br /><br />"I figured out I have to live to 79 to see them both graduate from high school. That's daunting," Miller said. "If I (worked in Bridgeport) for two years, it would be everything I have and all I have. Then what's left for me?"<br /><br />Miller said when he arrived in Bridgeport, he inherited "a mess." And while the authority board members, the mayor and many tenants say Miller has done a good job trying to rehabilitate the agency, the challenges show no signs of abating.<br /><br />On Wednesday, the authority is scheduled to begin meeting with HUD on the audit. HUD's inspector general concluded that the authority, during and before 2012, did not always ensure that expenses were reasonable and eligible. The authority faces having to reimburse HUD the $1.6 million as a result.<br /><br />Then there is the ambitious effort to replace the authority's aging 2,500 units with new developments, starting in the South End. That first phase has faced some stiff opposition and still needs zoning approvals.<br /><br />As acting director, Miller also handled crises daily. Several residents attended Monday's Housing Authority meeting to complain about poor heating, cold water and mold in their apartments -- all caused, Miller said, by bad roofing work and the authority's failure over the past four years to maintain a new boiler system.<br /><br />"We need somebody in here to straighten this system out," complained Betty Wood, who has lived in public housing for 13 years. "It's going backward instead of forward."<br /><br />Miller wrote down their problems in a red ledger and planned to follow up with each of the tenants.