2 Apr 2008
New Financial Team Pledges to Improve Efficiency
DALLAS-The Dallas Independent School District today formally launched a strategy to transform its financial operations.
The strategy is based on implementing strict financial controls and improved efficiency under the direction of outside financial experts.
"As we transform the district to improve in every capacity, it is imperative that our financial operation direct taxpayer resources to where they are needed the most—the classroom," said Superintendent of Schools Michael Hinojosa. "We are serious about financial transformation and our efforts have already started by bringing in a team of experts to improve our operations."
The financial team will be led by Chief Operating Officer Eric Anderson, a former chief executive officer from a publicly traded corporation on the New York Stock Exchange. Anderson today introduced three additional individuals with financial expertise to assist in transforming the district's finances.
Steve Korby, serving as acting co-Chief Financial Officer, has extensive experience in reorganizing and restructuring financial operations. He has served as interim CFO for multi-billion dollar corporations, has led efforts to create risk assessment strategies and was a partner for Coopers and Lybrand.
Carolyn Jones, the district's other acting co-CFO, has served as a chief financial officer, chief of staff and vice president of financial planning and consultant in the health care and financial service sectors. She has experience in fiscal transformation and worked to help turn around two multi-billion dollar companies.
Tom Canby, former managing director of financial audits for the Texas Education Agency, will provide the transformation team a perspective on best practices used throughout the state. Canby is known throughout the state as an expert on school finance and is currently a research consultant for the Texas Association of School Business Officials (TASBO).
"This financial team has a lot of outside experience in other transformational efforts," said Hinojosa. "We need to put in place a series of strict financial controls to maximize taxpayers' investments in our students. Anything less is unacceptable."
The team announced its series of action steps geared toward good stewardship of taxpayer funds. Those steps include building a sound financial strategy, implementing strict controls and improving efficiencies.
"The current fiscal position of the district is sound and we plan to keep it that way," said Jones. "At the same time, we need to develop a framework to make hard decisions on how we spend our funds—what we fund and what we don't fund based on our core mission of graduating students college and work-force ready."
The team will work with TASBO to develop a comprehensive 5-year financial strategy, in part by reviewing the past five years of financial data to observe trends. TASBO is a not-for-profit professional association which serves as a recognized source of accurate and objective school business and operations information. The team has also begun meeting with legislative advisors to determine the expectations of change in Texas' and federal funding programs.
"A key component of our strategy will be to implement strict financial controls that will be both stable and reliable," said Jones. "We are beginning a comprehensive risk assessment of the district's business services, with an emphasis on Financial Services. We will review all areas of risk, such as payroll processing, purchasing, grants spending and budgeting. No stone will be left unturned."
The transformation team will work closely with the district's Office of Professional Responsibility, the Internal Audit department and will be led by the office of the Chief Financial Officer. The team will also be looking at ways to improve efficiency.
"By improving efficiency, everyone can do their jobs quickly and with the proper controls," said Jones. "We have some very complicated processes throughout the district and we will seek every way to simplify them. We will listen to other staff, several of whom have already put forth ideas, to make things more efficient and effective."