The School Committee on Wednesday, Feb. 7 voted to accept Superintendent of Schools Jeff Szymaniak’s recommendation to hire former Canton Director of Business Steve Marshall as the W-H district director of business and finance, pending the successful negotiation of a contract.
His official start date would be July 1.
Szymaniak had recently accepted the resignation of Business Manager John Stanbrook, posting the position immediately on SchoolSpring and Indeed employment websites.
Thanking him for putting together the fiscal 2025 budget presentation, Szymaniak said he appreciated what Stanbrook has put together.
None of the viable candidates responding had any certification or experience in school business, so Szymaniak contacted some local superintendents for possible recommendations. School Committee Chair Beth Stafford said that, no sooner did W-H begin searching for a new business manager, a number of other towns also started a search process.
“I found Steve Marshall,” he said. “I shot a text to Steve and said, ‘Would you be interested in sending me your material so I could review it?”
He also asked Marshall if he would be interested in having a conversation with the W-H Central Office team. When Marshall agreed, he was interviewed and the team found him to be “exceptional,” Szymaniak said. Stafford also had a chance to meet with Marshall.
“By Jeff looking to the other superintendents and seeing if there was anybody around, to do it that way, was really the only way to get somebody qualified, who is certified and ready to go,” Stafford said.
“He comes with very good references,” Szymaniak said. “I’m very confident in his ability in municipal – town – government work. We spoke about the learning curve in a regional [district] and I’m very confident.”
Marshall had been director of business for the Canton School District, and W-H will have someone mentor him as he settles into the district’s business routine.
“He’s got the name,” Steve Bois joked about their shared first name.
Committee member Fred Small said he noticed a trend toward two-year periods with past employers on Marshall’s resume, and asked for an explanation.
Marshall replied that he spent about 10 years with Aramark, working with a number of different districts through the same employer as a contracted service provider.
“I did leave [Aramark] and spent some time outside of public schools, working for a startup company that was subsequently sold off, and I came back to public schools,” he said. “At that point, I decided to go back to school, get my MBA and decided I wanted to pursue a business manager position.”
He then spent four years with Newton Schools in the business office, and went for a promotion as the business director and manger in Canton, where he has been for the last two and a half years.
“What assurances could we feel we would have that, two to five years from now, you wouldn’t be giving the same pitch, so to speak, [to another district]?” Small asked.
Marshall reiterated that Szymaniak reached out to him.
“I don’t have to leave my current position,” he said. “It’s not something I’m running from at all, but after meeting an interviewing here, it’s a place that I truly want to be. I think there is a very strong leadership team here that I’m excited to be a part of.”
He also said he lives in a close-by town only a 20-minute drive away and is looking for a professional home.
“I’m really looking for a place to be for an extended period of time.” he said.
Committee member David Forth said he appreciated Marshall’s attending the meeting, asking about his experience with the MSBA in middle school projects noted on his resume.
Marshall noted he was serving as Natick food service director when that district built a new high school and was part of three building projects in Newton – one state-funded and two locally funded.
Canton – just getting into schematic design – is looking to build a 1,000-student middle school, which current cost estimates put at $230 million.
“Steve is very familiar with that [process],” Szymaniak said. “He can maneuver right into working with MSBA and our architect.” AO3 is also working on the Canton school project.
Forth also asked about how the budget process had been reworked in Canton.
“It’s absolutely phenomenal – the best budget book I’ve seen since I’ve been here,” Forth said, of the work Stanbrook had put into the fiscal 2025 presentation, asking about how Marshall might restructure the budget process at W-H.
“There were some fantastic documents shown here tonight,” Marshall said. “I think it’s been a very transparent process,’ he said of Canton’s budget process] … there was many community members and a lot of outreach that the process might not have been as transparent as it should have been. … It can be more easily understood by the general public, which is important.”
He noted there is work to be done on the financial software, in the wake of the hack to central office computers last year.
Committee member Glen DiGravio asked Szymaniak about an ETA on the software.
“It seems like it’s a very stressful thing,” he said.
“We’re actually getting really frustrated with MUNIS – customer support for us – we’re a small district,” Szymaniak said. “We’re actually actively looking at two different systems.”
Marshall, who has used the software for about 15 years, said the current MUNIS software is comprehensive software that can do anything, but the more they can provide to users, the harder they are to use.
“It is not the easiest platform to use because of its capabilities,” Marshall said. That said, he noted he is comfortable using MUNIS.
He also granted there is a learning curve involved in moving from a municipal to a regional school district, but there are aspects of a regional district that he has seen in other places.
Newton, for example, holds all its own benefits on the district side.
Committee member Dawn Byers asked about Marshall’s grant-search and writing experience.
“We were managing about $16 million in grants that came from a variety of different sources,” he said, noting that the “grant market is just not as great as what it was in the time I was in Newton.”
He added that a lot of private organizations are struggling with fundraising and the impact of the potential future of the economy and how that plays into grants and private funds.”
He was writing applications for private, state and fedral grants in Newton as that had been his specific charge when he started there.
“The demographics of the district has a huge impact on what your eligibility requirements are for many of the state and federal grants,” he said.
