Kevin Kolb, CPA, CFO, MSBO Board Member, Associate Superintendent of Finance, Gratiot-Isabella RESD
When I see someone get their first job as a business manager for a school district, I think to myself, “how are they ever going to get up to speed?” There is just so much they need to know. When I was hired for my first job, I had worked as an auditor for a CPA firm auditing various governmental units including a number of schools. Auditors may know the chart of accounts, preparing financial statements, materiality, testing, etc., but they know less about the day-to-day operations of a school district such as negotiating labor agreements, preparing cashflows, etc.
Now things were much simpler when I started in the business. The retirement rate was 5% for everyone. The consolidated application was about 3 pages long and typed on a typewriter. The thought of submitting your trial balance electronically (FID) would have sounded like science fiction as the internet didn’t exist! Nevertheless, there was still a great deal to learn.
To tackle this problem, I began looking through files to get an ideal of what had to be done and how it was it done in the past. Read instructions for everything that had instructions. Attended meetings, workshops, and conferences. And most important of all, I asked questions of almost everyone that I saw during the day. With the number of questions asked, people probably began to wonder what, if anything, I did know.
Since then, MSBO has added many supports for new business managers. There is the “Business Manager Academy” (a must), CFO Certification Classes, and regional MSBO meetings. These events along with the Annual Conference (should be a job requirement) and conferences/workshops provide not only many learning opportunities, but more importantly, a time for networking.
Developing a network of people to ask questions and share ideas is so vital that I would go as far as saying that it would be very difficult to be successful as a school business official without it. There are many tasks, situations, etc. for which your only guidance will be tapping into past experiences, knowledge, or ideas of people in your network.
Once you complete those first few years as a school business official and you begin to feel comfortable in completing all the tasks of the job, just remember that you will always have a need for that network, and they will need you. The job as a school business official is always evolving over time, new situations will be encountered, and new challenges will appear. You never know when you might get that next new job and start the process all over again.
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