Greenfield School Department begins search for business manager

Greenfield High School.

Greenfield High School. Staff File Photo/Paul Franz

By ANTHONY CAMMALLERI

Staff Writer

Published: 01-13-2025 4:30 PM

GREENFIELD — The School Committee voted unanimously last week to begin its search for a business manager.

The selected candidate will earn an annual salary of up to $130,000, commensurate with qualifications and experience. Although the School Department currently contracts TMS for financial services, the hired candidate will work in the district full-time, starting no later than July 1.

Margaret Driscoll, administrator of the Massachusetts Association of School Business Officials’ Educator Preparation Program, joined School Committee members last week to discuss the hiring process.

Driscoll suggested the School Department provide options for remote work in its compensation package to attract qualified candidates. She noted that the pool of candidates for the position is very limited and that the option for remote work can be attractive to qualified candidates, especially in a rural area where the employee might live farther away from his or her place of work.

“It is not a huge pool — just like the pool for school bus drivers or any kind of school staff, it’s hard to hire,” Driscoll explained. “If that [candidate] lives a bit of a distance away from you, and let’s say you allow that person to work one day a week or one day every other day remotely, it gives them that quiet time to do that real deep work.”

When School Committee Vice Chair Stacey Sexton asked whether the district could hire a candidate that is not a licensed school business manager on his or her first day, but is otherwise qualified for the role, Driscoll responded that waivers can be signed to accommodate such a candidate, but that the decision would ultimately be left to the superintendent.

Sexton also explained that the shift to hiring a full-time business manager was motivated by an urge to better support students and taxpayers by adopting more efficient financial practices. She said the business manager could help significantly with budgeting.

“This is really thinking through, organizationally, in our structure, how we want to do finance and operations within our district and what we think is going to make the most sense to maximize the highest quality instruction to our students vis-à-vis how we do our money,” Sexton said. “I wanted to advocate for having a dedicated staff who is in house with us 40 hours a week every week, except when they get vacation, working solely for Greenfield Public Schools and for our students.”

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Committee members also discussed the process of forming a search committee to fill the business manager position, delegating School Committee member Elizabeth DeNeeve to the search committee, which will be overseen by Superintendent Karin Patenaude.

In an interview Monday, Patenaude said Assistant Business Manager Vera Ayrapetyan, Assistant Superintendent of Teaching and Learning Stephen Sullivan, and Director of Pupil Services David Messing will be among the other members of the search committee.

Although Sexton, DeNeeve and Mayor Ginny Desorgher, who also serves on the School Committee, all voiced their interest in participating on the search committee, Chair Glenn Johnson-Mussad explained that if a quorum of School Committee members joined the search committee, it might complicate the matter, subjecting the search committee to the rules and regulations of Open Meeting Law.

“One way I could imagine us going as a committee is appointing one member to both serve on the search committee and also advise the superintendent in the process based on the values that have been expressed tonight, such as an interest in marketing, sharing who we are, our culture and so forth,” Johnson-Mussad said. “It’s great to see the initiative and the excitement at the opportunity. I think that more members involved slows the process down.”

Anthony Cammalleri can be reached at acammalleri@recorder.com or 413-930-4429.