Candidate for Vice President     

Bio | Vision Statement | Question and Anwer Forum | Interview

Shirley Broz, CPA, SFO, RSBA
Chief Financial Officer
Rockwood School District
Eureka, Missouri

Shirley Broz has been with Rockwood School District for 15 years, 12 years as the Executive Director of Finance and is currently the Chief Financial Officer as of July 1, 2009.  Rockwood School District is in the St. Louis, Missouri area and has an enrollment of approximately 22,500 students. 

A Certified Public Accountant in Missouri, Shirley received her MA from Webster University where she served on the Alumni Association Board of Directors.  Shirley currently serves as a Director for the Association of School Business Officials International.  She has served as an ASBO International reviewer for both the CAFR and Meritorious Budget Award (MBA) programs.  Shirley has chaired two committees for ASBO before being elected Director on the Board of Directors and now has the SFO designation from ASBO.  She is a presenter for the ASBO International annual meeting.  Shirley has served as President of the Greater St. Louis Association of School Business Officials.  She served on the MoASBO Board of Directors for seven years and was the MoASBO Conference Programs Coordinator as well as a member of the Spring Conference Planning Committee for ten years.  She currently serves on the GASB Governmental Accounting Standards Advisory Council (GASAC). 

Previous to her school district experience, Shirley worked for several international corporations.  Shirley's knowledge of budget preparation and presentation has earned the Rockwood School District the distinguished honor of being the first school district in the state of Missouri to receive the ASBOI Meritorious Budget Award.  This is the District’s 12th year to apply for and be awarded the MBA.  Since 2005, the District has also been awarded the COE Award for its Comprehensive Annual Financial Report from ASBO International.  In June 2002, Shirley received the MoASBO Business Official of the Year Award.  She is the first recipient of the award designed to honor MoASBO members whose work demonstrates personal excellence in service to their school district, community and profession.
 

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Shirley Broz – Vision Statement

I envision an ASBO International that continues to brand itself with the core mission of being the premier worldwide educational resource for school business officials.  Our commitment must focus on support for student performance while embracing the business official’s need for professional expertise, mastery of core competencies, advances in technology, and emerging legislative mandates.  As members face a shared reality of dwindling resources and escalating performance measures, ASBO must remain the affordable authority in education. We must communicate as leaders in our field, to the community, and to legislative bodies on the indicators of effective but sustainable education services.  ASBO must continue to uphold and instruct the highest ethical standards to promote accountability and integrity in all matters.   As the evolution of professional learning develops, we must impress upon others the wisdom and worth of the ASBO SFO Certification - particularly where licensure is not currently required.  ASBO must listen, learn, and then lead other associations in a collaborative effort to attract and retain membership in our organizations – but ASBO needs to take center stage in that effort.  If we are to be truly international, we must consider the needs of school business officials in all countries represented by our membership.  We must embrace an inclusive definition of the School Business Official to include efforts beyond the accounting and finance office, i.e. transportation and child nutrition.  While doing all of these things, ASBO must maintain that century-old passion to:

           Protect the legion of children in our care

           Provide the essential learning environments 

           Prepare the leaders of tomorrow

           Perform at the level of excellence

           Promote the latest educational and technological methods

ASBO must maintain its distinct advantage of being the consummate authority in the business of school business.

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Shirley Broz – Question and Answer Forum

Question 1 • Question 2 • Question 3 

Question 1: 
Given the perhaps permanent changes in the US economy with increased globalization and less funding for schools, what do you think are the most important areas that ASBO should focus professional development?

ASBO International has an outstanding history of addressing the membership needs for professional development.  What area should ASBO focus on now?  Communication - the communication of sharing complex and changing financial information to decision makers and stakeholders in an understandable manner.  The world economy shows few signs of recovery and concerns persist about stability and the pace of any improvement.  Globalization demands a sea-change of thought for a world constantly growing smaller.  Both state and local revenue sources continue to dwindle.   Fiscal anxiety is a way of life for school business officials.  What is now needed in professional development is a strategy to communicate about two items that have not always existed well together – economics and education.  We must learn to communicate the state of the district - about appropriate fund balance levels, about possible tax referendums, or about bond issue offerings to stakeholders.  We must learn to communicate to employees about the true financial condition of the district, even within the bounds of a negotiation process.  We must learn to communicate with legislators to guide changes in policy or procedure.    We must communicate with peers in school business from very different environments or even different countries. We must communicate about how to conserve the earth’s resources – regardless what part of the earth you inhabit.  We must communicate about more conservative attitudes toward spending without losing the edge that makes our individual districts unique. We have focused on alternative revenue sources and cost cutting measures for several years. The easy work was accomplished early, the hard decisions follow, and now is the time to develop priorities with the limited resources to protect performance.  Professional development focused on communication will aid the school business official in celebrating victories, sharing bad news and seeking input from stakeholders for difficult decisions yet to come.

Question 2: 
How can ASBO increase its collaboration globally given the interdependent world economies and the outsourcing of education and distance on- line learning that is growing in K-12 education?

Collaboration is the key to develop a working model that fits the changing topography of education.  ASBO must continue to do what it does best – educate members on emerging education issues.  ASBO must be proactive in joining forces with other associations and non-traditional education services.  We must embrace the facts as they present themselves, not fight the current of change.  We can provide a venue for collaboration through ASBO’s Executive Leadership Forum, Annual Meeting and Expo, and Live Learning Center to form alliances with other associations and with affiliate organizations within ASBO.  Keynote speakers, break-out sessions and discussion group opportunities should be tuned to current issues faced by ASBO and our association community.  ASBO must continue to develop partnerships in countries beyond North America to address the emerging issues in education.  These issues are both distinct to the National landscape and ubiquitous to all education service providers regardless of the country.  ASBO must continue to use the available internet-based tools available to them – ConnectEd and webinars on current topics - while developing leading edge professional development opportunities for their members and those of other associations and affiliate groups.  We must teach our membership to use electronic media to deliver education and to improve the way we do our daily business.  Safe, secure use of the internet in the classroom must be encouraged.  Changes to the classroom itself must be envisioned as we look to embrace new opportunities to educate students using the web.  Students in Canada to China or Mexico to Morocco could all learn the same lessons without entering a classroom.  We can learn from Higher Ed in on-line delivery methods as we seek to add their business manager to ASBO’s membership roll. ASBO can provide tools for hiring teaching staff for those difficult-to-fill positions that educate local students from remote locations.  We should collaborate, not compete, with organizations around the world in the areas of e-commerce, e-banking, and cooperative purchasing methods.  All of these fit the ASBO mission of providing world-class professional development to its members.

Question 3: 
With the launch of the SFO credential in 2010, what do you think are the next logical steps/directions for ASBO to pursue in regard to fostering awareness, promotion and acceptance of the SFO credential? What are the next steps, as you see it, for integrating the professional development ASBO or its affiliates provide with the new SFO credentialing exam?

The turbulent financial environment in education today is not for the faint of heart.  Today’s school business officials must be experts in the delivery of sustainable education resulting in increasing student performance but within an environment of shrinking funds.  This painful reality demands that a school business official be prepared to face the fiscal battles of the future.  The SFO credential is the perfect “armor” to wear in the fight towards financial stability.  The message about the value of the SFO must be spread throughout the ASBO membership.  ASBO is determined to move forward with the SFO credential and foster awareness, promotion and acceptance of the certification.  The launch of the program and the continued coverage of the progress have a strong presence on the ASBO web page, but we must get the message out to members who are not frequent visitors.  Awareness of the SFO accreditation may be spread in ASBO’s School Business Daily communiqués and with articles in School Business Affairs.  In addition, we should promote the SFO credential at annual association meetings of school boards, administrators, superintendents and principals to enlist their commitment to certification and professional status for their staff.  ASBO must celebrate their successes to date in the SFO program.  We must include the SFO program at the Annual Meeting and Executive Leadership Forum by offering SFO preparation courses giving potential candidates an opportunity to prepare for the certification test. ASBO should work to supply presentations and presenters of the SFO program at the affiliate annual meetings. Finally, our various committees can have the SFO in a significant position as they fulfill professional development and communication goals in their areas of expertise.   

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Shirley Broz – Interview

Listen to complete interview.

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