My commitment to fiscal responsibility and transparency is at the heart of my platform. I believe our community deserves complete visibility into how their tax dollars are being used to support education, and I’m dedicated to strengthening this transparency in several key ways.

Recent events in our district have highlighted the critical need for better communication and community involvement. For instance, when the district administration proposed a school consolidation plan, many community members felt blindsided by both the proposal and its rushed timeline. Learning from this experience, we created Process Action Teams (PrAT) that bring together district staff and community members to ensure public input in our long-term planning decisions.

Financial stewardship is particularly crucial given our current challenges with property tax revenues. I understand the impact of increased property taxes on our community members, especially with the recent Jackson County assessments and subsequent appeals. These appeals have resulted in lower-than-budgeted tax revenues, requiring careful financial management. While we’ve made progress in reducing costs through vendor changes, I believe we need to do more to evaluate our spending effectiveness.

One of my key priorities is to implement more rigorous program assessment. We should not only scrutinize new programs but also regularly review existing ones, being transparent about what’s working and what isn’t. I want to ensure we’re making data-driven decisions about program continuation or elimination, and communicating these decisions clearly to our stakeholders.

Most importantly, I believe in maximizing every dollar’s impact on our most valuable asset – our staff. By maintaining fiscal responsibility and transparency, we can build trust with our community while ensuring our resources are directed where they matter most: supporting quality education for our students.