School district CFO resigns

NEW HAVEN — Phil Penn, chief financial officer for New Haven Public Schools, has submitted his resignation to Superintendent of Schools Iline Tracey.

In a Tuesday night email to members of the Board of Education, Tracey informed the board that Penn had accepted a similar position in another school district, effective June 15.

“Mr. Penn has been a competent and expert worker in his field, and has served the New Haven Public Schools well in closing two budget deficits during his

tenure, and is in the process of setting up the budget for fiscal year 20212022,” Tracey said.

Penn did not immediately return a phone call seeking comment, as he was meeting with his new employers: the Hartford Public Schools Board of Education. On Tuesday, he was hired to the role of CFO in that district.

Penn, who was hired by New Haven’s school board in late October 2019, was the district’s first large hire under Tracey; the majority of the hiring process was handled by her predecessor Carol Birks before Birks’ contract was bought out by the school board. At the time of Penn’s hiring, Birks had not yet signed the exit agreement and legally was superintendent, although Tracey met with Penn before bringing his candidacy for the role before the school board.

Prior to then, the role lacked a permanent occupant since June 2016 when Victor de la Paz left the district for a similar role in the charter network Achievement First. This year, de la Paz received a presidential nomination to the role of CFO of the

Peace Corps.

Penn, a Burlington resident who left a town finance department position in Canton for the CFO job, started in his role by speaking candidly about how the district could expect “pain” in its budgeting process because of its finances. Within months, the district no longer was facing a budget deficit, largely because of side effects of the COVID-19 pandemic.

As of Monday, the district is projecting a surplus of just more than $750,000 for the current fiscal year.

Shortly before the pandemic, Penn’s relationship began to fray with some members of the school board. Board member Darnell Goldson criticized the district’s negotiations for paraprofessional contracts, saying the pay scale was not fair to some of the lowest-paid workers in the district; Penn accused him of negotiating against the district.

Later, following a board meeting held via Zoom, Penn reported to Tracey that he felt Goldson had created a hostile work environment; Tracey hired an outside legal firm to conduct an investigation into Goldson’s conduct — an investigation that a school board lawyer later opined was inappropriately broad. Ultimately, the law firm said the school board does not have a definition of harassment in its bylaws, making it impossible draw a conclusion.

Goldson said he was

“not surprised” by the news Penn was moving to another district.

Board member Larry Conaway also speculated that Penn becoming “controversial over the last several months” may have motivated his decision to look for a job elsewhere, but he believes it is a positive sign about New Haven’s school system as an employer that Hartford has hired away top talent from the district for years.

“We must be a good training ground,” he said.

Conaway said he was optimistic there is another viable candidate for the position who is young, hungry and creative.

“I think there’s young talent out there and new technologies out there to help us get through this,” he said.

Board member Ed Joyner said he believed the drama was not Penn’s fault.

“He was not treated well and deserved better,” he said. “Phil was a consummate professional and a hardworking and honorable man.”

Mayor Justin Elicker, who also serves on the school board, said he was sad to see Penn accept a job elsewhere.

“Phil put his all into the job. He successfully helped the New Haven Public Schools navigate very challenging budget issues and we are lucky to have had his expertise during this time (of ) crisis,” he said in a statement.

Board member Matt Wilcox agreed that hiring Penn was “a wise choice” for Hartford to make, and that New Haven has “reaped the benefits of his excellent service” since 2019.

“(W)e will have to work hard to find someone else with some urgency,” he said.

In front of Hartford’s school board Tuesday night, Penn said his first three months in New Haven were “like drinking through a firehose,” saying the differences in need in every school was both surprising and overwhelming. He said that in Hartford he intends to spend his first 90 days meeting with principals and other leaders to understand the needs.

He told the Hartford school board he is ready for the challenges of handling the finances of an urban school district after handling a large-scale project like New Haven Public Schools. He mentioned overseeing the purchase of 20,000 Chromebooks for remote learning and 6,000 gallons of hand sanitizer as two things he had done in the district that served as learning experiences.

When asked a question about his philosophy on cutting from the budget, Penn said he would cut from classroom teachers last, but he also suggested that he could use his office as an opportunity to pursue more revenue. He highlighted the hiring of a grant writer in New Haven over the summer as an immediate success, claiming she has brought in 32 times her salary in grant funding this year.

Currently, the role of chief operating officer is vacant after Michael Pinto left the role in November 2020 — creating two significant central office vacancies in the district as it prepares for a budget cycle that will involve managing millions in federal and state aid funding related to returning to schools following the COVID-19 pandemic.

Phil Penn