Leaders of Modern Finance Ep. 15 – Working With Limited Resources ft. Jennifer DuPlessis

On this episode of the Leaders of Modern Finance podcast, host Ken Boyd speaks with Jennifer DuPlessis, Assistant Superintendent of Finance and Operations at Lovejoy ISD.

Getting Involved in Schools

Jennifer took a circuitous route to her current position at Lovejoy ISD. After receiving her BBA and MBA from the University of North Texas, Jennifer began a Ph.D program in human resources development at UT Tyler. As she puts it, she stumbled into this particular post-graduate path, which years later would become an invaluable asset at Lovejoy ISD.

She spent much of her early professional career working alongside, not directly in, various school districts. She helped school systems plan construction projects and then assisted them in putting together specific finance packages that would fund these projects. She traveled the country often, bouncing from district to district. She put together a plethora of unique financial plans that helped each one achieve their infrastructure goals.

When the time came for her to start a family, Jennifer chose to put traveling aside in order to be more present in her home life. To this end, she accepted a job at Arlington ISD, which at the time was the ninth largest school district in Texas. She gained valuable experience by working within a single school district. Arlington in particular had ample funding and resources, and a robust, competent staff. In this role, her passion for working within schools was solidified. She even developed a career in education alongside her financial career, teaching as an adjunct professor at a local business college.

She eventually settled at Lovejoy, which was worlds away from the environment she had previously experienced at Arlington. Lovejoy is a fraction of the size, with little more than 4,300 students and 500 staff across the whole district. To complicate matters, Jennifer began work at Lovejoy in July of 2021, right in the middle of the Covid-19 pandemic.

Pandemic Challenges

Jennifer’s appointment to her current position at Lovejoy ISD came on the heels of a workforce reduction in response to Covid-19. In a district that was already small to begin with, having a reduced staff at the beginning of the fiscal year was a huge blow to Jennifer’s ability to work efficiently. Initially, she was also the only member of her staff with a background in finance, and so the workload that was demanded of her was immense.

The pandemic affected not just Lovejoy’s staffing, but their funding as well. In her school district, the public funds the schools receive is based largely on attendance. With only 4,300 students, Lovejoy’s attendance was already fairly small. The rise of virtual schooling and extended absences for quarantining students meant the average daily attendance was drastically reduced, and thus so was Lovejoy’s funding.

Such a volatile and unpredictable financial situation made Jennifer’s job extraordinarily complicated. The future financial models she was used to predicting seemed nearly impossible to forecast.

Public School Challenges

While Covid-19 posed its own unique set of challenges, Jennifer was also dealing with the standard complications that come with working within a public school system. Chief among them was funding. Lovejoy ISD does not generate its own revenue, nor does it receive funds from investors. It is primarily funded through money allocated by the government, often collected through local and state taxes. This means that the district’s available funds can be unpredictable. The funding can vary greatly depending on student test scores, attendance, and changes in local tax codes.

The cumulative effect of all these obstacles was that Lovejoy ISD was in dire financial straits. When Jennifer began her work, her district was extremely exposed to financial risk.

Making Scarce Resources Count

In the face of such an uphill climb, Jennifer proved herself resourceful. While it may have been easy to become overwhelmed, Jennifer focused her attention on one problem at a time. To start, she did an analysis of her district’s current status and identified areas of greatest need. From there, she was able to create and implement action steps to begin producing results.

Of primary concern was Lovejoy ISD’s lack of funds. Jennifer attacked this problem straight away, creating a three-year plan to escape her district’s precarious position. In creating this plan, she began communicating regularly with her board of trustees, which for a public school system is the local school board. They served as an access point to the community for Jennifer. By engaging with them and reporting her financial statements and future goals, she was able to educate the community on the needs of her district. As an example, she was able to assuage fears among older residents about changing tax codes. In turn, she won their support for local tax initiatives that would secure her more funding.

With clearly communicated goals and the promise of future funds, Jennifer began creating a budget based on her district’s current assets. She implemented a zero-based budget, the first of its kind in Lovejoy ISD. This ensured that every dollar available was being spent in a meaningful and productive way. It had a secondary benefit as well, which was that it offered Jennifer the chance to train some of her less experienced staff. Her whole team was involved in the creation of the budget. This meant that Jennifer was able to promote personal growth among those of her team who hadn’t been trained in finances before. This made her team as a whole more consistently efficient.

Jennifer made use of her human resources Ph.D and spent time learning how to encourage and engage with various members of her team. She was intentional in how she coached people. This way, she was able to maximize her staff’s output and maintain their motivation for their work, even in difficult times. Combined with smart use of her district’s ERP systems, Jennifer had given a short-staffed and underfunded district an efficient financial system to work with.

Always Learning

Jennifer attributes her success to an attitude she developed early in her career: never stop learning. It’s a piece of advice one of her former assistant directors used to give to his students, but it stuck with her as well. Whether it was learning more about the financial field in general, or about her organization specifically, a determined and inquisitive spirit allowed Jennifer to achieve much over her career.

In the end, Jennifer transformed a struggling school district into one primed for future growth and success.

This episode is brought to you by Stampli. The Most Powerful Way to Process & Pay Invoices. Stampli is the only AP Automation software that centers communications on top of the invoice so that accounts payable collaborates better with approvers, vendors, and anyone involved with purchases to quickly resolve issues and questions, resulting in 5x faster approvals.

Want to check out more episodes? Follow our podcast on YouTube, Apple Podcast, or Spotify!