The Evanston/Skokie District 65 school board voted unanimously Monday, June 10, to appoint Tamara Mitchell as the district’s next chief financial officer.
Mitchell, the assistant superintendent for business and financial services at Joliet Public Schools District 86 for the last eight years, will start her new role July 1. District 65 Business Manager Kathy Zalewski, who’s worked in the business office for the last 23 years and helped oversee district finances after the departure of former CFO Raphael Obafemi in August 2023, will step down June 30.
In announcing the hire at Monday night’s board meeting, Superintendent Angel Turner highlighted Mitchell’s upcoming role as the 2024-2025 president of the Illinois Association of School Business Officials.
Mitchell is a Certified Administrator of School Finance and Operations (SFO), according to a District 65 press release sent out Monday night. Before joining Joliet District 86, she served as an accounting supervisor, an assistant business manager and a director of business operations at four different Illinois school districts from 2001 to 2016.
Finance and budget consultant Robert Grossi and his firm Illuminate will continue to advise District 65 during Mitchell’s transition to the CFO job, as they’ve done over the last year, overseeing the formation of a budget reduction plan with Turner’s central office cabinet.
“My team is excited that Ms. Mitchell shares our belief that students must remain at the heart of everything we do,” Turner said in a statement. “I am confident in Ms. Mitchell’s ability to improve our district’s financial trajectory and rebuild community trust in our position as financial stewards.”
Under Grossi’s direction, District 65 has already launched permanent budget cuts of $7.37 million – $5.1 million through staff cuts and another $2.27 million through “non-personnel reductions,” including a freeze on all “non-essential purchased services and supplies.”
That’s just the first step in a multiphase plan. Without additional intervention through school closures and “right-sizing” buildings with new attendance boundaries through the Student Assignment Planning (SAP) process, the district is still looking at future budget shortfalls down the line and reserve funds drying up in a projected five years.
Mitchell will play a key role in continuing “a budget reduction plan to better align expenses to revenues and to take necessary and decisive action in eliminating our structural deficit once and for all,” according to the district’s press release. She also “holds a steadfast commitment to student-centered budgeting and making the sometimes-complex world of school finance easier to understand.”
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