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- [00:02]
A
You're listening to asbo international's school business insider. I'm your host, john brucato. Each week on School Business Insider, I sit down with school business officials and industry experts from around the world to share their stories and explore the topics that matter most to you. Find out what it means to be a school business official and get your insider pass on all things school business. Cfo. Hello, everyone, and welcome back to School Business Insider. Today's episode focuses on a topic that continues to redefine the role of school business leadership, the evolution from compliance officer to strategic capacity builder. I'm joined today by Anaf Tamid, CFO of South Bend Community School Corporation, whose recent School Business now article, through Strategic cfo Moving Beyond Compliance to Build Capacity, challenges traditional notions of school finance leadership. In our conversation, we'll explore what it means to move beyond compliance, how CFOs can build organizational capacity, and the practical ways school business officials can position themselves as strategic partners in advancing district goals. Anav, happy to have you.
- [01:22]
B
Thank you, John. Thank you for inviting. I'm excited to be here as you introduced me. This is Anaf Tamed, Chief Financial Officer, sfo, Saltland School Corporation, Indiana.
- [01:33]
A
Wonderful, wonderful. So for those who didn't read your article, it was a great take on really being purposeful and strategic about being a chief financial officer and a school business official. So to kick it off, what motivated you to really write this article and kind of share your experiences?
- [01:50]
B
Yeah, sure. Thanks, John. This is an interesting question because in my article I kind of challenged the traditional view of the CFO role. And honestly, I mean, it came from some kind of a frustration with the traditional narrative because in school finance, we are often viewed as the department of no. You know. Right, right, right.
- [02:14]
A
Yeah, yeah, we get that a lot.
- [02:15]
B
Yeah, yeah. We always say no, that, hey, we don't have the money, we can't do it, you know, you can't do that. We can't go that far. So. And often, I mean, the narrative is that revenues are shrinking, costs are rising there, you can't raise your tax rate anymore, and our job in the finance department is only to balance ledger. So I wrote this article kind of because I believe that is often not the only choice that we, the finance professionals have. In South Bend, we faced a huge teacher and support staff pay crisis, and the general perception was that it was an inevitable doom and we can't move beyond that. But I did not accept that. My team did not accept that. And we wanted to prove that if we stopped acting like Glorified accountants, you know, starting acting like strategic partners to the district. We could find the hidden capacity in our own fixed budget. Right, right within the fixed pie. And that was the sole motivation for me to write this article to outline the problems and how we can be more efficient in terms of operations and finances.
- [03:29]
A
Great. So. So tell me a little bit more about your history as a cfo. Where were you always of the mindset of being solutions oriented and being a strategic partner of the district? Or did you find yourself, like many of us, kind of just being the gatekeeper and the deliverer of.
- [03:44]
B
No, yeah, yeah, that's a great question too. So before I became the CFO of my district, I used to be the deputy cfo, you know, district budget director. So my responsibility was kind of to oversee the. The dayto day. Okay. So that was very briefly, purely compliance, you know.
- [04:06]
A
Sure.
- [04:06]
B
Now I loved that. Definitely. I mean, there's like a lot of things that we did in terms of ensuring compliance and to be even more compliant with the state board of accounts and with our own guidelines, you know, But I feel, felt even at that point that we could do more. And when I became the cfo, I mean, I, I had the full authority, you know, and the stage to do that. Now in most cases, we spend our days ensuring that we pay bills on time, we do the payroll properly, file our form nines, you know, I mean, take care of our debt service payments. Those are like non negotiables. Sure. But I believe, I mean, those are like the floor, not the ceiling that we can and we should try to achieve. So. Yeah, I mean, we always get through like external and internal financial audits. Right. But I believe, I mean, what kind of like gets left behind is the value audit, you know, like we truly do not audit the value we can, you know, like kind of release from within the fixed buy again. So we might comply perfectly with the procurement law, the purchasing law for a contract. But we fail to ask, hey, is this contract the right way to go and will it be maximizing the value our district should receive? Right. So when we are hyper focused on compliance, we often forget about the why and we only focus on the how to account for it.
- [05:39]
A
So let's talk a little bit more about that. And I am in complete agreeance with you. I think compliance obviously is a big component of our jobs. But if you were just focused on compliance, I feel like there's a lot of opportunity costs there because there's so many other things that you could be doing or aspiring to or really bettering yourself or your, your department, the district as a whole. So tell me, if you're just focused on compliance, what are you, what are you leaving on the table? What, what to your point, what to your using your own words, what gets left behind if you're just so compliance focused?
- [06:10]
B
Yeah, yeah, sure. So in my view, when we are so focused on compliance, we leave the capacity building part like fully left behind. And often, I mean, most people define capacity as more money from the state or the feds. Right. I mean we define capacity in terms of pure revenue that hey, I mean we are getting more money, we have more funding. But I define capacity as resource optimization. And this is the gap between what you are currently spending versus the value you are actually getting. Because what you are spending might not be giving you the true maximized level of value that you can get from the spending you are spending, let's say $300 million, but maybe in reality you're getting value of $200 million. Right. So how to ensure that you're spending the same $300 million but you are getting at least $300 million value or even more? You know, so that's what we did in South Bend because we found capacity not by getting more tax dollars, because the pie is fixed. Right, right. Standard inflation or a standard tuition support increase there, you know, the state's legislature is not in very much support of us. And for public education, especially in Indiana, you know, there are like new senate bills, laws that are kind of like limiting our flexibility there, limiting our growth opportunity in terms of property taxes and everything. So by reclaiming the waste that we have, we kind of like broke ground here. Because capacity is the ability to move dollar from a low impact area, for instance, like an overpriced insurance premium or a management fee or an outsourcing contract and to move it to a high impact area like teacher salaries or staff salaries, because that transfer like gives you the capacity and that's what gets left behind when we are too compliance focused.
- [08:13]
A
So in your example, it's not necessarily that you do the old adage of more with less. Sounds like you were able to do things differently and essentially maximize that 300,000 or whatever the dollar figure was.
- [08:28]
B
Yeah, exactly.
- [08:30]
A
So when I think about capacity, I think you've laid it out really well in terms of comparing just the black and white numbers versus how can you strategically think about things a little bit differently. But I also think about capacity in terms of what is the mental bandwidth of the school business official and you know, the few examples that you've laid out completely make sense. But I wonder, and I challenge you for those that are so compliance focused, because they have to be, they have a small business office and they may not have the capacity in terms of the bandwidth mentally to do other things. What are some strategies to kind of approach from that lens?
- [09:08]
B
Yeah, that's a great question too, because that is built in reality, right. For instance, Saltburn is a big district. We have a huge finance and operations team. Right. I have multiple directors who report to me. So I too have a cabinet to manage. Right. So it was easier for me to kind of instill the values and the vision that I have into my team, you know, and also at the same time to get our board and the superintendent and the district leadership behind my goal, you know. But you're right, I mean, there are often a lot of districts that does not have a big team. You know, maybe they just have like one accounting clerk, one person for payroll, only one CFO who does a lot of things. You know, he does the form 9 and everything on his own entirely. Right. So that's a great question. Now, in my view, we have to invest money in the professional development of our employees. However, whatever the number is, right. I mean, and it's not going to be only on compliance, but also into the strategic vision. Another thing is, I mean, we have to work towards automating as much as we can because the compliance work is mostly repetitive there. So we have to make sure that we have all the tools that we can get. And this is the age of AI now, Right?
- [10:35]
A
Right.
- [10:36]
B
For instance, we, right now in our team, we do a lot of things using AI like Gemini or ChatGPT to automate the things that we previously did manually. Right. Like for instance, we get a huge billing statement with 100 invoices, right. Previously, one person used to go through it manually, tally everything, put into a spreadsheet, then enter into our system again. Right. A lot of time. Now what you can do is you can just upload that 100 page billing statement in the ChatGPT and ask him or her. We don't know the gender of the AI. Right. Just make a spreadsheet of all the invoices and then you can directly try to upload that into the financial system. Right. That's what we do now. And again, I mean, you need a system like ERP system, financial and HR system, like an updated version that will provide you those flexibilities, you know, like mass uploads or mass transactions there, right? Definitely. I mean, there has to Be human touch. But as much as you can utilize the software, the tools and everything to automate the compliance process, it will release the time, the capacity and the bandwidth for your employees, even if you have only five employees, so that they can think strategically beyond compliance.
- [11:55]
A
Agreed. I mean, AI has been a huge recurring theme here on School Business Insider and it's encouraging to see just another example of how it's effectively being used and saving a lot of time and, and effort in the business office. I want to go back to something you had mentioned, changing kind of the mindset and bringing your, your team along with you and just kind of instilling your vision within your team. Were you met with, with challenge with that? Where is there pushback in terms of getting out of just strictly compliance mindset and getting more to a strategic partner slash value add mindset? Were there people kind of stuck in their ways or was everybody kind of on board, ready to kind of break old habits and do things a little bit differently?
- [12:36]
B
Yeah, I mean, whenever you're trying to change something, there will always be a resistance. Right. So for instance, the huge teacher raises that we offered to our teachers, we have around like 1100 teachers in our district now. In Indiana, we have 300 plus school districts and we were ranked 203rd in terms of teacher pay. However, we are the fourth largest district in the state. You know, and now in a single budget year, we are now in the top five, you know, in terms of teacher pay because we were able to offer them a huge $9,000 teacher raise. Okay, wow. 13% raise in terms of percentage. Now how did we make it happen? There were two master strokes and both needed a lot of changes where I faced a lot of resistance. And I'm gonna like share with you what were those in a brief manner. So number one was healthcare optimization. Our insurance, medical insurance premiums are increasing and this is a nationwide problem, Right? Like last year, our Premiums increased by 15%. In the year before it was 13%, you know, double digit increases all the time. And our actuarial studies showed that if we had not switched our insurance, it could have increased by another 13% this year. Wow. What we did is, I mean, we asked the question, is there any other alternative way? I mean, do we have to succumb to the increases all the time? Then we figured out that hey, we have not shopped in the market for the past 20 years. We are stuck with the same insurance provider, even though the service is good, but we haven't even thought about going to the market for the past 20 years. So we were focused on compliance that, hey, whenever we are getting the new insurance bills, you know, the enrollments, we are going to do everything by the book, right? We will do our actual studies. If there's a 15% increase, we are going to budget a 15% increase. Right? But we never asked the question, is there any alternative to that? But this time we did. And we went to the market and we found an alternative without compromising a single benefit for our employees. Even the benefits were better. You know, our deductible went lower, our premiums went lower, both for the employee and the employer. And we saved $10 million. Okay, wow. From one switch. Another was our custodial management. You know, I mean, we have like 25 schools. So we had a $21 million contract with the facilities management company here. They are reputed, they did their best. But the question was, I mean, was that the right option for the district? Right. I mean, we received the invoices from them in a monthly manner. We reviewed the invoice that, hey, they haven't charged anything extra. You know, they took care of the buildings that we really have and everything. And we paid the invoices. Every year. They increased it by a 3% CPI. And we budgeted that. That is compliance. You know, I mean, the state board audits, I mean, they're going to find everything was done by the book, okay? The contract was bid, right? I mean, the best bid got the contract. I mean, all the invoices were properly approved. Proper chain of command was followed. That is compliance. But capacity is asking, is that the right option going forward? You know, in the next years? Like next year, next three years, or next five years. So this time we asked that question and we found that if we do it in house, then we are going to save $5 million. And we did it, okay, and we save another $5 million. So we saved $15 million. And that's what enabled us to offer such huge raises to our teachers. Now, the resistant part is, I mean, when I introduced the idea that, hey, let's change our medical insurance, and it hasn't been done for the 20 years. And most of the people in the beginning was, are you crazy? Yeah.
- [16:45]
A
It's what they know best, right? That's all they know.
- [16:48]
B
Yeah. Yeah. So they were like, are you crazy? Are you gonna try to hamper the sensitive medical benefit of our employees? So it was very hard to convince everyone. And by everyone, I mean all the stakeholders, starting from my own team, then the district cabinet, the board members, the unions, you know, Everyone there and also our benefit consultants or attorneys. Now, it was chaotic, it was hard, but we did it because open communication here is the key. We had meetings after meetings, after meetings. We engaged the unions and we did it like way before time. And the key here is to do it so that people are involved and they, they feel that, hey, I have a buy in, into the process. Often in school districts, what we do is we just convince the superintendent on the board and we take a decision, right? And we shove it upon everyone's throat that hey, this is what we have decided. You have to abide by that. But if you even involve all the people there, even the employees to the, even the lowest level, everyone's going to feel that, hey, we have the buy in here. So definitely, I mean, there were a lot of resistances because what we did here, I mean, two major changes, you know, a twenty million dollar contract entirely getting rid of that and insourcing that and changing the medical insurance, which has been the case for past 20 years, it was chaotic. But the key here was to involve people so that they feel that they have a buy in, into the process and then take the decision together to convince them that, hey, this is the best way forward.
- [18:24]
A
Well, I have to imagine that one of the maybe unintended consequences of these two examples is that you gave is now you, I would assume, have a much stronger foundation of trust with your units and the other individuals in your district. Has that been, has that been your experience? I mean, is there kind of a new sense of a path forward? So if you have a kind of out of the box idea, maybe it won't be met with such skepticism and resistance because you've already proven twice over that these big ideas, although they may seem pretty lofty and out of the box, thinking it to start, it really has tangible benefits. Are you seeing kind of that materialize now?
- [19:05]
B
Yeah, yeah, that's actually a great question and I'm really glad that, you know, I mean, you thought about that. It is true, you know, I mean, once you have proven yourself that you are a strategist, you know, you are a proven veteran, you have done it before. I mean, it gets easier. You know, for instance, in the two examples that I provided, the facilities insourcing and the medical insurance optimization, the facilities insourcing happened first. Okay? So it definitely built me some capital, like some community capital, some leadership capital here that helped me to get people behind in a better way when we did the healthcare optimization plan. So, I mean, in terms of resistance, I mean, I faced extent of resistance, you know, with the healthcare optimization, because of what I did previously. Okay. So definitely, I mean, if I do something crazy like that, I mean, it will be very helpful for me because I have done it twice. Okay. And now, more importantly, it's not about me. I mean, the team. The team believes that, hey, you can do it. You know, we can do it. Right? I mean, it was. It was like, it was something that they thought, hey, we can do it. I mean, there are too much operational hassle, too much operational roadblocks to do it. I mean, it sounds like a good idea on the book, but you can't really do it because it might be an impossible way to do. Okay, but now that they have seen that we have done it, I mean, definitely. I mean, it has boost our confidence to the best way possible.
- [20:42]
A
So what you're telling me is that everyone doesn't see enough as the crazy radical. You're just strategic thinker now, right?
- [20:49]
B
Yeah, yeah, definitely. Exactly. And it was hard. It was very hard in the beginning because I just became the CFO and it was just, sure, sure. And people were like, hey, is this new guy crazy? Right? Right now? I mean, I have built the capital with the superintendent, with the board, with my own team, and most importantly, with the public and up. Because they see that, hey, I mean, they are doing things, but they are very transparent. Now we know everything that's happening way before that is about to happen. We have a buying into the process. We even held like a budget work sessions. Okay. Where the public could come, they could share their inputs and everything. Okay. So it is like an end to end stakeholder engagement process that we follow for a strategic initiative like that.
- [21:39]
A
Well, related to that, you know, in the article you talk about describing the CFO as a strategic partner. We touched on it a little bit. But what does that really look like in practice when we talk about the relationships with superintendents, boards of education and other cabinet teams? What does that strategic partner relationship really mean for the cfo?
- [21:57]
B
Yeah, that's a great question. So in my view, it means that being in the room when the major district decisions are being made, not just when the bill comes due, you know, because sometimes what will happen is, I mean, if the CFO is only an accountant, the district, and by the district, I mean the board of the superintendent, I mean, they will make decisions and then they will come to you that, hey, I mean, we have a large invoice to pay, okay. Or it will be. It will only be a financial information exchange that the superintendent on the Board will ask the CFO that, hey, we need $5 million. Can. Can you afford it or not? So they will only want a yes or no answer, but it is way above that. You know, the CFO is a district leader. He needs to work very closely with the board and the superintendent because CFO is not only the money man who pays bills. If the perception of the CFO in a district is like that, I mean, that speaks a lot about the district. District, okay, sure. Now, when I became cfo, I did our value audit, as I said, found out that we could solve the teacher pay problem, we could solve the bus driver shortage problem without increasing our budget. But it was dependent on major choices. Like we discussed the healthcare optimization, ending outsourcing. Right. So what I did is, I mean, in the beginning, what I said, I mean, we had a stakeholder engagement sessions there, right? So I prepared a data driven presentation for the cabinet and the superintendent. Okay. So I convinced them first and then went to the board. Now the presentation to the cabinet and the presentation to the board was entirely different because the audiences are different. Right? And we always have to think about the audience who we are presenting to. Because the cabinet will be very interested in seeing your data driven numbers. They will be interested in seeing tables, a lot of numbers there, but the board will not be so much interested in seeing that. Most of the times, in my experience, you know, they will want to see that. What is the end goal if you do that? I mean, what are you going to achieve? Okay, so in terms of the end goal, that, hey, if we do this, we can give the teachers a $9,000 increase. Okay, so long story short, like, after I got everyone on the same page, I mean, we started the implementation, right? So again, the cfo, superintendent and the board needs to be on the same page always and always regarding major district decisions. And this basically stems from the cfo, because he needs to show that, hey, I'm more than an accountant, so it is your best interest to partner with me so that we can make our district progress further. Okay. And once you have done it, I mean, it will be a very fruitful partnership going forward.
- [24:47]
A
You mentioned it a little bit in terms of building the capacity with and the relationships with the superintendent, the board, and your cabinet. Tell me a little bit more how you leveraged long range financial planning and forecasting to help make these decisions and go from compliance to strategic. I mean, long range planning for me is one of my passions in the work. I find a lot of utility in it, and I think it helps tell the story and the trajectory and the decisions we make now may impact us in a certain way in the future. How did you kind of do that? Especially with these two examples with healthcare and insourcing.
- [25:21]
B
Yeah, yeah, that's a great question too, because long range financial planning is very much needed, especially it was very much needed for our district because of a referendum. I mean we do have a referendum right now we enjoy additional $32 million every year in tax dollars. Okay. Because of the referendum. But it's going to end in 2028. Now if we just did a yearly budget or like a two year, three year plan, it's going to show that, hey, everything will be fine, everything will be fine. But the board and the superintendent needed to know that we will need a referendum renewal to sustain what we are doing right now.
- [26:05]
A
Right.
- [26:05]
B
And if we cannot get a referendum renewal, then we will have to cut down costs in XYZ manners. Okay? So long range financial planning was very much needed for us because that was one of the first things that I did. I prepared a five year financial plan and we had like two scenarios there with referendum, without referendum. And also a lot of our buildings are very, very old. You know, we have 25 schools, we have 50 plus year old buildings. So capital project is a huge thing for our district, like many other districts. So I also have to show that, hey, I mean we need approximately $250 million in capital money. I mean, if we want to do a facelift of all our buildings now, we can't really do that. Right. Without significantly increasing the tax rate. So we have to do what we can do within our bond capacity. So I also did a financial planning, like a five year financial planning for our capital projects. So combined, I mean, I made a presentation first to the cabinet and when we agreed as a district leadership team, we took it to the board so that they are aware that, hey, I mean, this year, I mean this is what it is, but in the next five year, I mean, this is what may happen so that they have the ultimate strategic vision there that, hey, I mean, everything is not operating in a silo, right? I mean, we have to have the ultimate strategic goal which will be beyond five years or even more than that to sustain the district.
- [27:45]
A
And by doing so, I'm sure it instills confidence in your community because ultimately you're dealing with public money, right? It's not like you're building widgets and sourcing this from sales. You are using the taxpayer dollars. So did you notice an increase in confidence from your community when you go to do another referendum and when you go to do capital improvement projects, are you finding that there is support. Support directly correlated to. This is our strategic long range financial plan. This is what we need, and here's why. And this is what the next five years is going to look like.
- [28:20]
B
Yeah, exactly. Exactly that. Because, you know, like CFOs or finance professionals, they see the numbers and often the numbers are scary, right? For instance, I found out that, hey, we really need a referendum renewal if we don't want to close down maybe like five private schools or if we don't want to get rid of transportation entirely, right? So again, I mean, you can be aggressive and you can be very pessimistic. I mean, if I were pessimistic, I would suggest that let's not get a referendum, okay? Because we do not have the community support. We can save $15 million. Let's add that to our cash reserve and let's freeze all the teacher raises and support staff raises. We don't have to care about teacher shortage or bus driver shortage because we are fighting for survival. That was one option. Another option was, hey, we are saving $15 million from health care and outsourcing optimization. Let's invest that money into our teachers, bus drivers, right? So that we can solve the teacher pay crisis, the bus driver shortage crisis. Then we can try to get some more enrollment. We can increase the student outcomes, the educational outcomes. And in the process, we can show to the public that, hey, we are actually doing it right now, okay? We are blessed to have the referendum, but we are showing you that we truly believe in our community. We are being transparent. So please give us another referendum renewal so that we can continue the good work that we have been doing. So my strategy was the latter, okay? And through the presentations, as I said, I mean, I got the cabinet, the district leadership and the board behind us. So now we have a common goal here for our year three in 2029, that, hey, I mean, we need another referendum. And that really helped, you know, because previously I'm in the CFOs only did like one presentation in a year. One public presentation in a year. That was the budget presentation.
- [30:30]
A
It's not enough, right? You need to get ahead of the messaging.
- [30:33]
B
Yeah, yeah. Now, after I became the CFO, I think I have done around 20 presentations. Okay, wow. Like small or big budget presentations in total different budget work sessions. Okay? So the public has a full understanding of what's happening financially for the district. What is the multi year plan? What is the one year plan? Okay, they know everything, they can ask questions. So this transparency, I mean, it definitely helps, you know, when the public, the taxpayers see that, hey, I mean, they are steering to the right direction, they won't mind giving few extra dollars and help you get a referendum renewal. But if they see that you already have a referendum and you have squandered the money, you haven't kept the promises, even with a referendum, you're teachers are one of the lowest paid in the state. I mean, most probably they're not going to give you a referendum renewal. You know, so again, here I'm an accountant versus a strategist. I mean, the strategist mindset definitely helped us here because if we were truly accountants, I mean, we would just settle, you know, with the referendum that we have right now and we would do all the accounting by the book. The auditors will find that, hey, you have done everything by the book, but at the end, I mean, you will not get a referendum renewal because you were not strategic enough to build the capital in the community to ask for another one.
- [31:57]
A
We talked about the relationships with the superintendent, the board, your cabinet building, the capacity within your business office. But what about the, the connection to instruction? CFOs don't always come from the instructional house and may not have a full understanding of the decision trees, the priorities and really how it correlates to student outcomes. How can CFOs better connect the financial decisions to instructional priorities?
- [32:27]
B
That's a great question too. Because unlike private organizations, our goal is not to maximize profit, Right. Our goal is to maximize student outcomes because we are a school district, right? So everything we do has to somehow connect to better instructional outcomes and better student impact. Now, teacher pay, right? I mean, we increase the teacher pay massively. Now the question might be why did we do it? Just because of the bragging rights that we are the highest paying district in the region. Of course, I mean that, that definitely helps, you know, gives you some pride. But that's not the reason.
- [33:09]
A
Yeah, maybe on a recruitment standpoint, you know, maybe you're getting some different teachers, right?
- [33:13]
B
Yeah. Yeah. But the ultimate goal is research has shown that if the teachers are paid higher, the student outcomes increase. Right. Because they are satisfied, you get the best teachers, they invest more in terms of their time, effort and everything to the students. I mean, that is like multiple research backed data there, right? So we took that into our hearts and we were like, hey, if we want to increase our student outcomes, we have to start with the single most important factor found by research, you know, which are the teachers. And we have to see how we can improve their lives so that they can improve the student lives. Okay? And that's when we like brainstormed, you know, beyond the compliance model that hey, how can we empower our teachers? How can we make our teachers true partners? Okay? How can we make our support staff like bus drivers or crew partners? How can they become the brand ambassadors? Everything was done with the ultimate goal that hey, we have to increase the student outcomes, the instructional outcomes there, okay? So CFO's, Finance Professionals has to see that how you can invest your money to optimize the outcomes there. I mean, in private organizations we often use the word roi. Return on investment, right? I mean, it's the same thing here, but here, I mean the return is better student outcomes. Okay? So again, I mean you have $300 million. You have to see how you can maximize your ROI with the same money, right? I mean, you don't necessarily have to ask for more money, but you should definitely try to maximize whatever. You have to have the best ROI possible there in terms of student outcomes. And student outcomes can be different, right? Graduation rates, then I read, I learn data there, right? And everything else, I mean it will depend on one, what metrics the district overall sets as the goal there. Right? But again, I mean, whatever you choose, I mean your investment in the finances will have to link to that somehow, okay? Otherwise I mean it's not gonna be strategic. It might be like a one time short term win. But hey, you have given teachers huge raises, okay? I mean you have received some media buzz, the teachers are happy. But ultimately it will not translate into a student outcome. So you have to see it through the end there. You can't just stop there. You have to facilitate enough in other areas too. And you have to make research backed decisions to ultimately link it to the instructional outcomes.
- [36:02]
A
So everything we talked about up until this point I think is going to require more than Excel mastery and I struggle strong concept of the general ledger and budget code. So what skills beyond technical finance do you feel that are most critical for CFOs who really want to lead with a more strategical intent?
- [36:23]
B
That's a great question actually, because for me, I am an MBA and I have a dual major, you know, not only in finance, but also in business analytics. So I, I, I can actually move beyond the spreadsheets or excels. For instance, I know how to code, okay? I mean I know multiple coding languages and I handle big data, okay? Like real big data, like multi, like let's say 15 years of financial data or 15 years of student outcome data. Okay? So I can code data there and I can really see the trend. I mean, and it is beyond the capacity of Excels. So definitely my background there helped me because of my MBA and also my business anal analytics background there. Right? And again, I'm in AI. I mean, you have to, you be able to utilize the new tools that are coming, right? So again, I will kind of emphasize on the professional development of your employees because, yeah, the CFO can have all the skills that he needs. He can see beyond the compliance, but your employees will have to see that. And that's why you really have to invest on the professional development of your employees. For instance, in my team, I have given kind of like a free will situation there that, hey, if you like my team members, if you want to kind of like pursue an SFO or a CPA or cgfm, you know, or you want to have some courses in AI, you want to go to the Indiana, okay? And you want to learn business analytics, you want to learn SQL or R, I mean, you're free to do so, okay? You just come to me, you give me a proposal that, hey, I want to enroll into that course. It's going to cost X dollars, but I mean, it will enhance my capabilities so that I can do this in my work, work area, okay? And a lot of people has have come to me and they are doing a lot of courses on different things there, okay? Now we are investing some money there. We are spending some money in terms of professional development of employees. I mean, it has been quite more than the previous years, okay? But I, I could justify that to the superintendent on the cabinet that, hey, I mean, we are just investing the money because the outcomes will be manifold, okay? The outcomes will be much, much more. Because now, I mean, they can be strategic thinkers and not only like compliance builders there. So professional development is very much needed. Often we forget about that. You know, we as CFOs, I mean, we try to excel ourselves, we earn a lot of degree certifications, but we don't do the same for our employees. But I'm trying to break that here. I am offering the same things that I am doing myself, okay? So that, I mean, they can also grow. Because the ultimate thing is like if one of my employees leave, that's fine. If he finds a better opportunity, if he can excel himself in another area, I mean, that is fine too. We all want our employees to excel not only here in this organization, but even outside in his career, right? But if you invest in them. If you show them that, hey, I'm truly interested in your success regardless of what your workplace most probably they're going to stick with you. Okay. Because they will see that you value them.
- [39:49]
A
Right. And I think to kind of, to your earlier point, we're not in competition with one another as school districts. Right. It's not like private industry. So to build up your business department will only help to benefit you hopefully down the road. I mean, your paths may cross. They may be a CFO at a neighboring district and they could help you out in another in another way. So that the, I think the professional development piece, I can't say enough about it. And then similar to that, the networking piece as well with ASBO International affiliate ASBOs. I mean, the networking piece really I think is important in terms of building capacity and being able to reach out to one another. When you have questions or you have to bounce ideas off of one another. That is really kind of like the unique thing about what we do is we're not competing with each other. We're here to help each other out.
- [40:39]
B
Exactly, exactly. And also, I mean, that is beyond your state. Okay. Like, we are heavily connected to the Indiana asbo, but when we did something great in Indiana, you know, in terms of the historic teacher raises, I was like, hey, the nation needs to know, okay? Because what we did here, I mean, the nation can benefit from here. Right? I mean, there might be a lot of other districts in a lot of other states, maybe in New York, maybe in Vermont, in Virginia, you know, who are facing the same problem. They can really get ideas from what we did in Indiana. And that's what also propelled me to write that article in ASB International. I didn't write it to ASB Indiana or in a local newspaper. I tried to do it in the national platform so that I can disburse, dispense my experience and knowledge and expertise into the national platform. Because you're absolutely correct. We are not competing against each other. We all are here to enhance and improve public education for our kids.
- [41:38]
A
That's great. So as we wind down here, one more question for you. So for CFOs who really feel stuck in that compliance first environment and that traditional mindset of just focusing only on what has to get done, where do they start to break that?
- [41:55]
B
Great. My suggestion will be to start with one big win. Like, don't try to fix the whole district overnight. Okay?
- [42:04]
A
Right.
- [42:05]
B
Even I didn't do that. Right. I mean, as I mentioned, I mean, I tried with one contract. So My suggestion will be maybe just pick one contract, one area, you know, one insurance policy or one inefficiency in terms of operations that you know is wasting money. Okay, Just pick one, then dig deep, analyze it. Utilize data driven technique there. You know, like use trend analysis. Take multi year data, right? Interview people, talk to people, go out of your desk, you know, go to the schools there, if needed, talk to your people, even talk to the custodians, the bus drivers. You have to find the root cause. You have to do a proper root cause analysis of the problem of practice that you have found and then present a solution that generates savings. And not only savings again, but mean those savings has to connect to better student outcomes somehow. Okay? So you have to close the loop. I mean, if you only generate savings, good, but somehow it has to connect to better student outcome. So pick one possible big win like that. And once you have achieved that, once you show to the board and the superintendent and the cabinet that you can generate opportunities for such optimization, you then earn the political capital to take on bigger strategic projects. So success breeds trust and further success. That will be my suggestion to aspiring CFOs and finance professionals.
- [43:31]
A
Wonderful. Well said. Well enough. Thank you so much for joining me today and congratulations on all the successes you've had at South Bend. It sounds like you're really doing some wonderful things on behalf of students and staff. So again, thank you for joining me today on School Business Insider.
- [43:47]
B
Thank you. Thank you so much, John. And thank you for inviting me to this platform so that I can share my experience with you and the national platform here. This is very helpful and I. I strive to be operationally excellent, not only for my district, but for everyone, so that, I mean, they can get ideas and inspiration there. So I would be more than willing and happy to connect any other way possible with ASB International. Thank you for the opportunity.
- [44:16]
A
Wonderful. Thank you. Ana.
- [44:17]
B
Thank you, Jim.
- [44:19]
A
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