St. Paul school board OKs hiring of new district finance chief

The St. Paul school board on Tuesday approved the hiring of a new district finance chief — setting aside, in turn, concerns over the ouster of a longtime employee viewed by many as a "trusted leader," a board member said.

Marie Schrul, whose job as chief financial officer was eliminated, lost out to Tom Sager, director of business services for Mankato Area Public Schools, as Superintendent Joe Gothard's choice for the new position of executive chief of financial services.

Gothard said Tuesday it was wrong to describe Schrul's forced departure as a dismissal. But community members and parents critical of previous district decisions viewed the move with suspicion and rallied around her as a model of transparency in budget-cutting times.

Sager's hiring was approved, 5 to 1, with Uriah Ward voting no.

Last week, Gothard dismissed Schrul without any public explanation and with no record of any complaints or discipline being levied against Schrul during her 24 years with the district, according to a public data request.

This week, James Farnsworth, a University of Minnesota regent who has run for the school board, launched a call for an outside audit of the state's second-largest district and gathered more than 50 signatures on a "community letter" posted on the Facebook page Working for a Better SPPS.

"I'm here to emphasize that there are now many serious questions circulating in the public realm about the district's financial practices and culture that need to be addressed immediately," Farnsworth told board members Tuesday.

Citywide, the district had 32,100 students as of Monday's daily count, compared with 33,366 on Oct. 1 of the previous school year — a slightly steeper drop than the decline already being projected for 2022-23 budget purposes.

Preliminary numbers at the nine schools affected by the Envision SPPS district redesign were encouraging, however, the district's operations officer, Jackie Turner, told board members Tuesday.

Oct. 1 is the key date for determining how much state revenue goes to Minnesota school districts. St. Paul officials agreed this summer to form a committee with teachers, parents and others to explore ways to boost enrollment and retain students.

In the community letter delivered to board members Tuesday, Schrul was described as a dedicated and faithful public servant. Five people who signed it — Farnsworth, Nancy Bitenc, Monica Haas and Joe and JoAnn Nathan — were part of a No Cuts to Kids movement seeking to block classroom budget cuts in 2016.

They say the board should work with the state Department of Education on an audit that would look into the district's financial and business practices in four areas, at least two of which — nutrition services spending and the rising debt associated with building projects — received scrutiny in a public way from Schrul and her team.