Chief Financial Officer, Guilford County Schools
Alma Advisory Group, United States
Job Description
About Guilford County Schools (GCS)
Guilford County Schools (GCS) is the third-largest district in North Carolina, serving nearly 70,000 students across 124 schools in urban, suburban, and rural areas. Appointed by the Board of Education in 2022, Superintendent Whitney Oakley is the first superintendent from Guilford County to lead the district. Dr. Oakley is leading the district through a pivotal phase in its development, focusing on graduating students who are ready to be successful citizens and leaders of the world and ensuring that the $2 billion in voter-approved school bonds to build, rebuild, and renovate aging schools are managed and executed to meet the community’s needs. Members of GCS’s leadership team will play a critical role in helping the district reach its top priorities which focus on student achievement, equity and excellence, talent development, school choice, and organizational effectiveness.
Reporting directly to the Deputy Superintendent of Business amp; Operations, the Chief Financial Officer leads the team in stewarding the fiscal resources that will allow Guilford County Schools to accomplish its key goals outlined in Dr. Oakley’s Better Together Strategic Direction. This person will direct GCS’s financial strategy to support effective budget planning, maximizing available funds, and ensuring an equitable distribution of resources for the day-to-day operations to support the district’s vision for student success. The Chief Financial Officer must be an experienced and accomplished finance and accounting professional, a key advisor to the Cabinet members, and a collaborator with other departments and stakeholders (internal and external) that support the district’s improvement. The team includes Purchasing, Payroll, Accounts Payable, Accounting, and School Accounting/Budget.
Specific Duties and Responsibilities
Equity Leadership and Student Success
- Cultivate a commitment among all district staff to enable all students to achieve high standards.
- Confront preconceptions and model open dialogue around race, culture, class, and other issues of difference.
- Demonstrate cultural proficiency, sensitivity, and equity to ensure students’ needs are met.
- Assess the distribution of resources with a clear racial equity lens, ensuring allocations provide the best resources to equitably and effectively meet the needs of all GCS’s students, families, and schools.
Strategic District Leadership
- Implement strategic financial strategies that maximize available funds and ensure equitable distribution of resources across the district to support student success.
- Provide strategic leadership to develop the district’s annual budget and multi-year financial plans in conjunction with the Superintendent and other Cabinet leaders.
- Spearhead the annual capital planning and monitoring processes so that capital expenditures reinforce broader programmatic goals.
- Maintain knowledge of State and Federal laws governing the oversight of school district finances. Partner with the state, county, and other local organizations with regard to fiscal impacts and strategy as needed.
Finance Team Leadership and Management
- Represent the district, as needed, on budgetary matters in a variety of venues, including public hearings, Board meetings, media briefings, and external stakeholder and community meetings.
- Manage the performance and effectiveness of the Finance Office, including the successful implementation of financial and budget goals, effective controls and monitoring of the district’s budget, efficient operational processes, and excellent service to schools and district offices.
- Forecast short- and long-range cash requirements and obligations as a basis for sound financial and equitable funding mechanisms.
- Direct the team in the preparation and presentation of monthly budget reporting and annual projections for all aspects of the GCS budget; collaborate with the team to ensure accuracy of analysis and data in departmental reports.
- Emphasize the importance of the Finance Office’s essential role in serving the district’s students, families, staff, and community partners in interactions and communication with internal and external stakeholders.
- Ensure successful annual financial audits and the completion of any required federal, state, or county financial reports.
Systems, Support, and Execution
- Ensure the successful implementation of the new Enterprise Resource Planning system, Oracle.
- Provide project management oversight and for priority short- and long-term initiatives; develop tools to track progress and monitor key performance goa