Plavac: Superintendent must explain promotion of unqualified applicant to CFO

Letter to the editor

As we balanced the 2025-26 Alachua County Public Schools (ACPS) budget, staff reductions were needed. Since May, firings, demotions, or movement into different positions occurred throughout the district. It is more important than ever that we have a qualified leader in finance.

What concerns me about the superintendent’s recommendation for the next CFO of our school system is that, according to the job qualifications posted for the CFO position, this is what the individual should possess to even be considered for CFO:

CFO – QUALIFICATIONS LISTED IN THE JOB DESCRIPTION:

1. Master’s degree from an approved accredited educational institution with specialization in public or business administration, finance, or other acceptable field; or Bachelor’s degree in accounting or other related field and CPA credentials
2. Minimum of 10 years progressively responsible administrative and supervisory experience

Now granted, there is always discretion given for meeting those qualifications, but after doing due diligence and researching the top 27 districts in the state, every individual in the position of CFO has some financial, accounting, or business background — or has a CPA license if they do not have a master’s degree in business, with maybe one or two exceptions. But everyone currently serving as a CFO, in a district with a comparable budget, has a finance background.

Michael Reneke, whose promotion from Budget Director to Chief Financial Officer is on the consent agenda of the December 16 school board meeting, has only been employed by our district since 9/10/25. And if you look at the job qualifications for the Budget Director, he does not meet those, either, but was hired into that position.

BUDGET DIRECTOR QUALIFICATIONS:

1. Bachelor’s degree from an approved accredited educational institution with specialization in business or public administration related degree. Master’s degree preferred.
2. Minimum of 5 years of experience in the administration of budget, insurance and/or finance/payroll.

Mr. Reneke’s educational background consists of a BA in English and Philosophy. There is no financial education on his resume, nor experience in educational finances. He has worked for different non-profits, as noted on his resume, in Florida, and out of those, the largest budget he managed was $155 million. And to remind my fellow board members, again, the ACPS budget is $605 million for 2025-26.  

I am not quite sure why Dr. Patton is so intent on hiring this individual, nor why Mrs. Terry felt that he was the best candidate. I would like us to have additional information about any other individuals who qualified for the position, whether they were interviewed, the outcomes of those interviews, and the reasons why we have to vote on an individual that by all accounts does not have the academic credentials nor even work experience in the educational area of finance, to be the overseer of the district’s finances.  

I have only found one district out of 67 districts that does not have a CFO with either a business or finance background, and if they had a Bachelor’s degree, they were also a CPA. Mr. Reneke has none of those credentials. 

On December 2, 2025, the district paid a registration fee of $1,250 for Mr. Reneke to start a 2-year business cohort through the Institute of Florida School Finance, designed to train and meet the professional development needs of an individual who wants to work in finance in the school system. Presumably, you go to school to learn something you don’t know how to do. Why would we pay someone to do the CFO job before he knows how to do it? Dr. Patton knows Mr. Reneke is lacking in the area of school finance, so my question to the board and Dr. Patton is, why are we hiring a CFO who is clearly ill-prepared to handle a $605 million budget or learning as he goes the nuances of school financial literacy, which is unique in itself. Were there no other qualified candidates?

Coming from a difficult year in which the district had to make up a $20 million deficit by letting staff go and relocating staff to new positions, even eliminating positions, why would we vote to install a CFO who lacks the credentials to manage our school district in a fiscally responsible manner? Why would we vote to have a CFO who has no educational financial insight? Why would we vote for Mr. Reneke to be our CFO, when he has only been employed in the district since 9/10/2025 and in that time has not had any formal evaluation for us to review his performance?   

Dr. Patton is asking us to vote on promoting Mr. Reneke from Budget Director to CFO. He has only been in this district for three months. I don’t think I have ever heard of any new employee in any organization being promoted to such an important position, without the job qualifications to begin with, in a three-month time period. Please provide us with the reasoning for this proposed promotion, as well as examples of crises that Mr. Reneke has faced and how he has excelled in his proposed solutions.

For me, questions arose when Dr. Patton stated she did not want me to be embarrassed by making Mr. Reneke’s CFO appointment an action item because she has the right to recommend him. If there are no concerns for his appointment, then in the wake of all that has currently happened with this Board in the last six months, surely transparency is of an immediate need. I told Dr. Patton that the community needs to know her intent and that I wanted the approval by the board to be voted on with full disclosure of all my concerns, with an opportunity for the board to discuss it and for the public to voice their concerns. 

If qualifications in a job description are not required, then why is there a job description to begin with? We have had to make some very difficult choices in either letting personnel go, changing personnel assignments, and eliminating positions, so why are we considering the hire of a candidate who does not meet the basic qualifications while letting go of highly qualified individuals due to poor financial oversight? 

When the superintendent said to me that the job qualifications for this position do not mean the candidate must meet those educational requirements as outlined, then why was an ACPS senior accountant in May 2025 demoted to a specialist program services and told the reason was because they did not meet the educational requirements of the senior accountant position, even though they have been employed in the district for over 14 years? And that reasoning directly contradicts what the superintendent is saying regarding Mr. Reneke’s appointment. Lack of education specified in the senior accountant position was the reason given for the demotion to specialist program services, but lack of education for Mr. Reneke doesn’t seem to apply to the CFO appointment; this sends a poor message to all educators whose certifications and qualification requirements increase each year. At the least, it seems to me that ACPS should repost the CFO position with the actual minimum qualifications. 

The CFO of the School Board of Alachua County has to be able to manage and direct personnel in the budget and finance departments, recommend a budget, and provide leadership, direction, and oversight for the Business Services Division, but most importantly, that person must have the confidence of the taxpayers of Alachua County in managing a $605 million budget. 

May we have any examples of Mr. Reneke’s endeavors that identify experience in these realms? I am not sure why the superintendent is so adamant about hiring Mr. Reneke and why he was recommended by HR for the CFO position. Numerous staff in his department have told me that he has said to them that he has the CFO job, and my reply to that is that this board has to do its due diligence and not vote to have Mr. Reneke as the next CFO of the School Board of Alachua County until supporting evidence of his abilities is provided. He is not qualified, and if he wants to reapply once he finishes his coursework and the job is available, then he certainly can do that, but for right now, he should not be considered for the CFO position in ACPS.

As school board members, I think all of us should be concerned about the speed of this appointment, the lack of credentials, the lack of transparency regarding other job applicants, and why we should be willing to accept the superintendent’s recommendation for such an important position without doing a deeper dive into this promotion. What are we trying to hide? Clearly, this should be concerning for all of us. 

We need to protect our students, and that means protecting our qualified staff, and we can only do that with fiscal responsibility.

I encourage the community to attend the School Board meeting on December 16, 2025, at 6 p.m. Please make sure you sign up online or fill out a form to speak before 6 p.m. This will become an action item. If you cannot attend, then write the board members at boardmembers@gm.sbac.edu or boardmembers@alachuaschools.net.

Janine Plavac, School Board Member

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