Job Description

Job Location: MERF - Los Angeles, CA 90012
Position Type: Full TimeEducation
Level: Bachelors Degree
Salary Range: $190,000.00 - $210,000.00 Salary/year
Travel Percentage: Up to 25%
Job Shift: DayChief Financial Officer
Position Type: Full-Time, Exempt, 12 Month
Reports To: Deputy Superintendent
Location: Home Office / Network Support
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The Chief Financial Officer serves as Magnolia Public Schools’ senior financial leader and a key strategic advisor to the Deputy Superintendent, CEO, Board, Finance Committee, and executive leadership team. The CFO leads Magnolia’s financial strategy, budgeting, forecasting, accounting, compliance, internal controls, cash management, grants fiscal management, debt oversight, capital finance, and financial reporting.
The CFO ensures that Magnolia’s financial systems, resource decisions, and fiscal practices support the organization’s mission to provide a safe, nurturing, high-quality, college-preparatory STEAM educational experience for students. This leader connects financial planning to school quality, enrollment and ADA trends, staffing models, facilities obligations, grants, debt capacity, and long-term sustainability.
The CFO leads a responsive, agile, service-oriented Finance Department that provides schools and Home Office departments with timely information, clear guidance, reliable systems, strong controls, and decision-ready financial analysis. The CFO strengthens budget ownership, financial transparency, public stewardship, and fiscal discipline across the organization.
This role requires a leader who can manage complexity, build trust, support school and department leaders, improve systems, protect public resources, and ensure Magnolia has the financial foundation needed to sustain strong schools and implement its long-term strategic priorities.
Key Responsibilities
1. Lead Financial Strategy and Long-Term Sustainability
- Lead Magnolia’s financial strategy in alignment with the organization’s mission, vision, strategic priorities, school quality goals, growth plans, and long-term sustainability needs.
- Partner with the Deputy Superintendent, CEO, Board, Finance Committee, and executive leadership team to align financial planning, budgeting, forecasting, and resource allocation with organizational priorities.
- Lead multi-year financial planning, scenario modeling, and budget strategy to support structural balance, reserve protection, cash flow stability, responsible growth, and long-term fiscal discipline.
- Identify financial risks, cost pressures, revenue dependencies, and sustainability challenges; recommend timely corrective actions that protect school programs and public resources.
- Ensure financial planning distinguishes between one-time and ongoing revenues and expenses so that staffing, programs, facilities commitments, and expansion decisions are based on sustainable assumptions.
- Provide clear financial analysis and recommendations to support major decisions related to staffing, enrollment, facilities, debt, grants, school viability, and organizational growth.
2. Strengthen Budgeting, Forecasting, and Monthly Financial Management
- Establish and maintain a clear budget ownership model in which principals, department leaders, and executive leaders understand their budget authority, approval responsibilities, spending limits, and monthly review expectations.
- Lead the annual budget process and ensure budgets are realistic, mission-aligned, enrollment-sensitive, and connected to school and department priorities.
- Provide school and department leaders with timely, accurate, and actionable budget-to-actual reports, variance analysis, forecasts, and decision-support tools.
- Lead a disciplined monthly financial review cycle that includes budget performance, cash flow, enrollment and ADA assumptions, staffing costs, vendor costs, grant spending, facilities obligations, and school-level financial performance.
- Monitor key financial drivers, including enrollment, ADA, UPP, LCFF revenue, staffing ratios, payroll trends, special education costs, grant spending, vendor costs, debt service, reserves, and cash flow.
- Develop dashboards and reports that help leaders understand financial status, risks, assumptions, trends, and recommended actions.
3. Ensure Strong Financial Management, Compliance, and Internal Controls
- Oversee all core finance functions, including accounting, budgeting, financial reporting, payroll, accounts payable, procurement, grants fiscal management, cash flow, banking, audits, debt compliance, and required financial submissions.
- Ensure timely, accurate, and transparent financial reporting for the Deputy Superintendent, CEO, Board, Finance Committee, authorizers, auditors, lenders, funders, and internal stakeholders.
- Maintain strong internal controls, fiscal policies, financial procedures, approval workflows, and documentation standards that safeguard public resources and support clean audits.
- Ensure compliance with applicable federal, state, local, charter, grant, nonprofit, audit, bond, and public funding requirements.
- Maintain year-round audit readiness through timely reconciliations, transaction review, documentation, internal control monitoring, and correction of process weaknesses.
- Monitor and mitigate financial risk, including liquidity, reserves, cash position, budget deficits, audit findings, grant compliance, debt obligations, enrollment volatility, revenue shortfalls, facilities exposure, and long-term sustainability indicators.
4. Strengthen Enrollment, ADA, LCFF, and Revenue Assumption Discipline
- Ensure enrollment, ADA, retention, UPP, LCFF, staffing, grant, facilities, and cash flow assumptions are evidence-based, documented, regularly reviewed, and adjusted as conditions change.
- Partner with Impact, Accountability, school leaders, and executive leadership to review enrollment, ADA, retention, recruitment, and conversion assumptions used in budgets, forecasts, staffing plans, and long-term financial models.
- Monitor enrollment-to-budget variance by school and grade level and ensure material changes are reflected in forecasts, staffing models, spending controls, cash flow projections, and Board-facing reports.
- Model the financial impact of enrollment or ADA shortfalls and recommend timely actions related to staffing, discretionary spending, reserves, school-level sustainability, and executive or Board escalation.
- Clearly communicate the fiscal implications of enrollment performance, ADA trends, UPP changes, LCFF revenue changes, and staffing assumptions to executive leadership and the Board.
5. Lead Facilities, Debt, Grants, and Capital Finance
- Lead the financial planning and oversight of facilities, construction, real estate, debt, bond financing, grant-funded capital projects, and long-term facilities affordability.
- Partner with Facilities, Operations, legal counsel, lenders, financial advisors, and external partners to evaluate major facilities projects, real estate decisions, financing plans, and capital commitments.
- Prepare affordability analyses for facilities and capital projects, including enrollment assumptions, debt service capacity, cash flow impact, reserve impact, project contingencies, local match requirements, and downside scenarios.
- Monitor bond covenants, debt service coverage, days cash on hand, liquidity, reserve requirements, lender obligations, rating considerations, and long-term debt capacity.
- Oversee fiscal management of federal, state, local, and philanthropic grants, including budget setup, allowable-cost monitoring, reimbursement tracking, reporting deadlines, documentation, and coordination with program owners.
- Ensure grant spending is compliant, timely, strategic, and aligned with approved program goals and student needs.
6. Strengthen Vendor, Contract, Procurement, and Cost Controls
- Establish and maintain systems for reviewing vendor costs, contracts, invoices, service documentation, procurement compliance, and budget approvals.
- Partner with school leaders and department heads to ensure invoices are supported by verified services, proper approvals, available budgets, and compliant procurement processes.
- Monitor high-cost and high-risk spending areas, including special education services, substitute services, facilities, technology, professional services, consultants, legal services, and back-office support.
- Review vendor cost trends and recommend actions to reduce unnecessary spending, strengthen controls, improve contract value, and protect school budgets.
- Manage and evaluate external finance, accounting, payroll, audit, banking, financial advisory, and back-office service providers to ensure quality, cost effectiveness, timely reporting, compliance support, and responsiveness.
7. Build a Responsive, Agile, and School-Centered Finance Department
- Lead a responsive, agile, and continuously improving Finance Department that provides accurate, timely, practical, and school-centered support.
- Clarify Finance Department workstreams, staff roles, responsibilities, deadlines, approval protocols, documentation expectations, and escalation paths.
- Manage departmental workload across budgeting, accounting, payroll, accounts payable, procurement, grants, reporting, audit preparation, facilities finance, school support, and executive reporting.
- Implement systems to prioritize work, reduce duplication, assign clear ownership, cross-train team members, and ensure continuity during peak budget, audit, payroll, reporting, enrollment projection, and Board cycles.
- Develop recurring finance calendars, monthly close routines, budget monitoring timelines, documentation protocols, and service expectations for schools and departments.
- Build a Finance Department culture grounded in accuracy, responsiveness, customer service, collaboration, accountability, transparency, continuous improvement, and problem-solving.
8. Serve as a Strategic Partner and Trusted Communicator
- Serve as a trusted financial advisor to the Deputy Superintendent, CEO, Board, Finance Committee, and executive leadership team.
- Prepare decision-ready financial materials, dashboards, Board reports, Finance Committee updates, and executive briefings that clearly identify assumptions, risks, options, tradeoffs, recommendations, and fiscal guardrails.
- Present financial information in a way that helps leaders distinguish between governance decisions, management recommendations, operating realities, and implementation actions.
- Build strong relationships with school leaders, department leaders, auditors, authorizers, lenders, funders, back-office providers, financial advisors, and community partners.
- Communicate complex financial information in ways that are accessible, actionable, accurate, and aligned with Magnolia’s mission and strategic priorities.
- Model integrity, confidentiality, sound judgment, transparency, and steady leadership in moments of change, complexity, or uncertainty.
9. Lead and Develop the Finance Team
- Build, coach, and lead a high-performing finance team grounded in service, accuracy, collaboration, responsiveness, accountability, and public stewardship.
- Set clear expectations, strengthen team capacity, and ensure strong execution across finance functions.
- Develop staff through regular supervision, coaching, feedback, cross-training, professional development, and performance management.
- Ensure team members understand their roles, deadlines, internal customers, recurring deliverables, documentation expectations, and standards for accuracy.
- Collaborate closely with Academics, Operations, People and Culture, Impact, Accountability, Facilities, IT, and school leadership to align financial planning with organizational needs.
- Support continuity and organizational resilience by reducing single points of failure and building shared knowledge across critical finance functions.

Qualifications
- Bachelor’s degree in finance, accounting, business administration, public administration, or a related field required.
- MBA, CPA, or related advanced credential strongly preferred.
- Significant progressive financial leadership experience in public education, charter schools, nonprofit finance, public-sector finance, or a similarly complex public funding environment strongly preferred.
- Demonstrated experience leading budgeting, forecasting, financial reporting, audits, compliance, internal controls, cash flow management, and long-range financial planning.
- Experience managing complex budgets, multi-site organizations, public funding streams, grants, payroll, procurement, facilities financing, and/or debt obligations strongly preferred.
- Strong understanding of nonprofit accounting, public-sector finance, GAAP, audit processes, charter school finance, LCFF funding, ADA, enrollment-driven revenue, and public accountability standards.
- Experience strengthening finance teams, improving workflows, building scalable systems, improving service delivery, and supporting organizational change.
- Experience managing external accounting, back-office, audit, payroll, banking, bond, or financial advisory partners preferred.
- Experience with facilities financing, bond transactions, debt compliance, capital project budgeting, cash flow forecasting, lender reporting, rating agency communications, and Board-level financial analysis strongly preferred.
- Experience developing enrollment-sensitive financial models, ADA projections, revenue forecasts, staffing affordability analyses, school viability analyses, and school-level financial dashboards preferred.
- Proven ability to build and lead teams, strengthen systems, manage workload, develop staff, and support leaders through complex financial decisions.
- Strong analytical, communication, relationship-building, problem-solving, and executive leadership skills.
- Ability to communicate complex financial information clearly to non-financial audiences, including school leaders, department heads, Board members, and community stakeholders.
- Demonstrated commitment to Magnolia’s mission, values, public stewardship, equity, transparency, and student-centered decision-making.
Desired Leadership Competencies
- Strategic financial leadership
- Fiscal discipline and public stewardship
- Long-term sustainability mindset
- Budget ownership and assumption discipline
- Enrollment, ADA, LCFF, and revenue forecasting
- Cash flow and risk management
- Debt, capital, and facilities affordability analysis
- School viability and scenario modeling
- Board-facing decision support
- Strong internal controls and compliance mindset
- Systems thinking and process improvement
- Responsive and agile service delivery
- School-centered support orientation
- Team development and workload management
- Cross-functional collaboration
- Vendor, contract, and procurement accountability
- Sound judgment, integrity, and confidentiality
About Magnolia Public Schools
Magnolia Public Schools provides a safe and nurturing community using a whole-child approach to deliver a high-quality, college-preparatory STEAM educational experience in an environment that cultivates respect for self and others.
Magnolia prepares students to become scientific thinkers, creative problem-solvers, effective communicators, and socially responsible contributors to a peaceful and inclusive global community.
Why Join Magnolia
Magnolia offers competitive benefits, retirement participation, generous time off, professional growth opportunities, and the opportunity to contribute to mission-driven work that directly supports students, families, schools, and communities.
The Chief Financial Officer will play a critical leadership role in strengthening Magnolia’s financial systems, supporting school leaders, improving budget discipline, protecting public resources, and building the responsive and scalable finance infrastructure needed for long-term organizational success.

Work Environment and Equal Opportunity
This role requires regular collaboration with school sites, Home Office departments, executive leadership, the Board, Finance Committee, auditors, authorizers, lenders, funders, vendors, and external partners. The CFO is expected to lead with integrity, confidentiality, sound judgment, transparency, and a deep commitment to Magnolia’s mission.
Magnolia Public Schools is an equal opportunity employer and is committed to building a diverse, inclusive, and welcoming workplace.