School Board Selects Whitaker as Business Manager

Keith Whitaker peruses some of the reports he'll be filing as Orcas Island School District Business Manager.

At the monthly Orcas Island School District Board meeting tonight, the OISD Directors unanimously approved the selection of former Board Member Keith Whitaker as the District’s Business Manager.

Whitaker will assume his duties immediately, taking over the position held for the last three years by Ben Thomas, who has been working one and a half days per week at the Orcas School District. Whitaker will be employed as a .6 FTE, serving roughly 24 hours a week.

“The main function of the business manager is to make sure the process of gathering information and putting out reports is as accurate and efficient as possible,” Whitaker said.

“The really nice thing about this particular time is that the board is so aware of the financial details and requirements; and they have been working hard on improving the fund balance. During a difficult time, they have managed to move the fund balance into a healthy position,” Whitaker said.

The Business Office continues to work with the Budget Advisory Committee (BAC) to improve the coding in both revenue and expense categories and to transition into new software that will make it easier to get reports from the accounting system.Whitaker has served as a member of the BAC, and since becoming a School Board Director, as  liaison between the Board and the BAC.

Whitaker says of his predecessor, “In the last couple of years the BAC has developed a good working relationship with Business Manager Ben Thomas. They’ve made progress in clarifying the expense and revenue coding and adding important categories. Ben has felt like an important member of the team.

“But the number of hours spent in the district office limits what he can do; that one reason I always thought having someone in the office more days, more hours, was a critical change. ”

When asked to compare the school’s budget of 5.7 million dollars to another “small business,” Whitaker gives the example of the San Francisco production company where he was last employed before starting his own company: that business had only 12 employees and had higher costs in production, travel and materials expenses. The mix of elements such as these is different in every company, Whitaker says, but with the Orcas Island School District,  about 80% of the school budget is payroll.

Whitaker described a small business owner as “inventing” all the time — new products, new incentives for creditors to pay their bills, new markets to reach. “In education, not as much of that goes on — thought I hope to bring that into grant funding and apportionments — as dealing with existing systems, both on the funding and reporting sides,” said Whitaker, adding that those systems “aren’t totally predictable in what they expect.”

His role is to “just always be aware and informed of all the sources of information and requirements for reporting… and like a small business owner, you have to keep track of standard, everyday business paperwork, like payroll, bills, supplies.

Whitaker says that during the initial part of the learning process for the Business Manager position he will probably be in the office every day.  “It will take a while to understand the systems.  I see everyone in the Business Office as my teachers next year.

“In past businesses, I expected myself to know, and be able to perform, every job in the company. Otherwise you could have unrealistic expectations, or impractical deadlines.”

Whitaker expects to learn specific systems and software for reporting requirements, such as enrollment schedules or apportionment regulations. “I’ll be trying to build a calendar as quickly as possible to manage the timelines of the process of translating information into appropriate reports.  One of the things I hope I’ll be able to do is reduce the stress of the environment to the lowest possible level. The best way to do that is to have the best handle possible on your resources.

“I’ve been involved in the business process so long that I’m confident I can handle it, once I know and organize the information.  And I get the sense there are a lot of people ready to help me.

“It’s very exciting, and very much a learning process. Until I see how it operates, I’m not thinking about changing anything. I think it will be a good team, and having someone present more will make it easier. I wouldn’t want to have to do it the way Ben [Thomas] has; that’s really hard.

“I don’t have a problem taking time to be part of the team, knowing it will be really valuable to the district. The hardest part of my decision to apply for the Business Manager position was that the OISD board is working so well together. Everybody works hard, and I hated to disrupt the process.

“But it was too good an opportunity to have a longer time to have a direct impact — and to think about working on the schools. It’s a good time for a transition and I know that I’m planning on being here long-term.”