Arts and Culture

Financial Consultant Luz Cazares Will Earn $32,000 Per Month to Oversee School District Finances

Published

4 years ago

December 26, 2019

The Oakland Unified School District has extended the contract of school finance consultant Luz Cazares, who will serve as the districts ’s interim Chief Financial Officer (CFO) for the rest of the school year at a cost to the district of $32,000 a month or $192,000 to the end of June.

The district has had to deal with financial instability, losing many of its key finance administrators in the past year, while at the same time facing huge parent and teacher protests over ongoing budget cuts and school closures. At present, the district is not saying how many schools it plans to close, though in the past officials estimated the number to be as high as 24. The Fiscal Crisis Management and Assistance Team (FCMAT) has urged the district to eliminate as many as 36 schools.

Cazares was originally hired for the first half of the school year, from July to December, for $176,000, according to a news report, making her total pay for the 2019-2020 school year $368,000.

“Ms. Cazares is a professional school finance consultant and is not available for hire, so we are fortunate that she has the availability to continue to serve OUSD for the remainder of the school year,” said District Spokesperson John Sasaki.

“The Board of Education has yet to approve the contract extension. The directors will vote on it next month,” he said.

Part of her salary, $120,000, will be offset “with private (philanthropic) dollars,” Sasaki said.

Cazares will lead the district’s budget, accounting, strategic reserves, payroll, procurement and accounts payable functions, according to Supt. Kyla Johnson-Trammell, in a Dec. 19 internal memo to administrators.

“Luz brings a wealth of knowledge and expertise in leading districts through deep financial challenges and developing budgets that reflect…. best budgeting practices that align to the district’s priorities,” said Johnson-Trammell.

Responding to news of Cazares’ new contract was parent advocate Mona Lisa Treviño, a member of the parent/student advisory committee of the district’s Local Control and Accountability Plan (LCAP) committee.

“Many of us don’t make her monthly salary in a year. Who makes this kind of money in the district off of our kids? It’s an outrage,” she said.

Treviño criticized the district for lack of fiscal transparency, saying the administration keeps changing the budget numbers it uses to justify cuts, while the public is kept in the dark about the role of outside agencies that influence decision making: the County Office of Education and the Fiscal Crisis Management and Assistance Team (FCMAT).

“Policy after policy gets passed from up top, while the public and our schools are excluded from the plans, and still there’s no stability in sight,” she said.

“The public has the right to know who is mandating these expenditures, especially at a time when our school sites have faced and continue to face harmful cuts.”

Cazares is founder of Lucid Partnerships in Alameda, a consulting firm that specializes in school budget and management services. She has worked in Chicago Public School as a financial analyst, the Massachusetts Department of Education as a fiscal management supervisor, deputy superintendent of business services in Pleasanton Unified School district and CFO in Alameda City Unified.

She was hired in July with the idea that she would work alongside a new CFO, who would be hired in September, according to reports. However, that did not happen.

“One of the key criteria is to get operations in a place in which somebody would come in and take over and kind of lead from that place,” said OUSD Chief Systems Service Officer Preston Thomas, who signed the contract in July with Cazares on behalf of the district.

Thomas, quoted in EdSource, said Cazares would help the district make a transition to a new finance chief, avoiding the “hard, abrupt stops” that have impacted the OUSD when other top financial administrators resigned. Thomas acknowledged that there exists only a small pool qualified finance officers, and the position may be difficult to fill.

According to Thomas, the Alameda County Office of Education has provided internal fiscal support to the district, at least through December. With Cazares on board, “OUSD is now leading the overall financial improvements with technical assistance from the county on key projects,” said Sasaki,

He said the money paid to the county for these services did not come directly from OUSD but rather through AB 1840 — a state law that provides some limited extra funding to OUSD in exchange for the district’s pledge to cut program costs and reduce the number of school sites through property sales, long term leases, closures/consolidations.

Going forward, Thomas will not have budget responsibilities, according to Supt. Johnson-Tramell.

“(He) will remain supervisor and leader of Nutrition Services, Instructional Technology, Warehouse, Duplication, Risk Management and Transportation,” she said.

“Now that the financial team has stabilized …. Thomas will be focused on other critical operations such as the highly anticipated start-up of the Central Kitchen,” added Sasaki.

Ken Epstein

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Arts and Culture

Kedrick Armstrong: New Music Director for the Oakland Symphony

The Oakland Symphony Announced Kedrick Armstrong as its Next Music Director. In addition to conducting the orchestra’s public concerts, Armstrong will also actively participate in the Oakland Symphony’s many education and community engagement programs, designed to inspire a love of music in people of all ages.

Published

6 days ago

April 20, 2024

Oakland Post

Kedrick Armstrong is the new music director for the Oakland Symphony. Photo credit Scott Chernis.

By Post Staff

The Oakland Symphony Announced Kedrick Armstrong as its Next Music Director.
In addition to conducting the orchestra’s public concerts, Armstrong will also actively participate in the Oakland Symphony’s many education and community engagement programs, designed to inspire a love of music in people of all ages.

Armstrong is the successor to previous music director and Conductor Michael Morgan, who passed away in 2021 after a 30-year tenure at the Symphony.

Armstrong will open the Oakland Symphony 2024-2025 season on October 18.

Armstrong, who is 29 and hails from Georgetown, South Carolina, is currently the creative partner and principal conductor of the Knox-Galesburg Symphony.

The Chicago Tribune has praised Armstrong for his ability to “simply let the score speak for itself.” He enjoys a wide range of repertoire, spanning early music to premiering new works, using his joy and curiosity for all music to cultivate understanding and collaboration within diverse communities.
“I am deeply honored and grateful for the opportunity to serve as the new music director of the Oakland Symphony,” Armstrong said. “As a Black conductor, I find it humbling to stand on the shoulders of both Michael Morgan and Calvin Simmons,” the most recent and the first African American music directors of the Symphony, respectively.

Armstrong led three programs at the Symphony between 2022 and early 2024, which showcased his broad knowledge of the classical repertoire and enthusiasm for spotlighting diverse voices.
On his Oakland Symphony subscription debut on Feb. 16, Armstrong led the world premiere of “Here I Stand: Paul Robeson,” an oratorio by Carlos Simon on a libretto by Dan Harder, commissioned by the Oakland Symphony.

Armstrong was selected unanimously by the Oakland Symphony’s board of directors and musicians after an extensive two-year search. “The search committee was overwhelmed by Kedrick’s scholarship and curiosity about all kinds of music, from classical and jazz to gospel and hip-hop,” said. Dr. Mieko Hatano, executive director of the Oakland Symphony. “We are thrilled to have him join us at the Oakland Symphony.”

Oakland Post

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Arts and Culture

Faces Around the Bay Dr. Carl Blake, Pianist

Born in Liberty, Missouri, Carl Blake, a virtuoso and respected pianist, made his most recent migration to the East Bay in 1999. One might have seen him performing recently at Noontime Concerts in San Francisco, or at the Piedmont Center for the Arts in Oakland. He is Director of Music at The Church for the Fellowship of All Peoples in San Francisco. He was also co-organizer and collaborative pianist at Herbst Theater for The Majesty of the Spirituals concert in 2022 and has held several church positions in the Bay Area.

Published

1 week ago

April 17, 2024

Oakland Post

Dr. Carl Blake

By Barbara Fluhrer

Born in Liberty, Missouri, Carl Blake, a virtuoso and respected pianist, made his most recent migration to the East Bay in 1999.

One might have seen him performing recently at Noontime Concerts in San Francisco, or at the Piedmont Center for the Arts in Oakland. He is Director of Music at The Church for the Fellowship of All Peoples in San Francisco. He was also co-organizer and collaborative pianist at Herbst Theater for The Majesty of the Spirituals concert in 2022 and has held several church positions in the Bay Area.

Blake obtained a Bachelor of Music from Boston University and continued post-baccalaureate studies in Jamaica before earning a Master of Arts in Music at San Jose State University. He was the recipient of two Fulbright residencies in Honduras and completed a third residency at the University of St. Petersburg in Russia. He has a Doctor of Musical Arts from Cornell University.

At age 19, Blake, then an undergraduate piano major at Boston University, was “discovered” by Impresario Dr. W. Hazaiah Williams, who is the Founder and Director of Today’s Artists/Four Seasons Arts.

Williams honored Blake by awarding him the first Marian Anderson Young Artist Award. Anderson personally presented the award at the Masonic Auditorium in S.F. Subsequently, Blake was presented by Dr. Williams in his San Francisco debut at The Herbst Theatre. Williams subsidized a year of study abroad for Blake at the Paris Conservatory of Music. Additionally, Williams sponsored Blake’s New York Weill Hall debut, where he has performed twice since. Blake performed several times at the Yachats Music Festival in Oregon.

Blake continues to perform nationally and abroad. His hobbies are reading, baking and travel. He says, “I’m still pumping ivories, as Belgian pianist Jeanne Stark described the disciplined practice of concert piano.”

Oakland Post

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Arts and Culture

Oakland Jazz Great Offers Master Class as City Declares “John Handy Day”

World-renowned jazz master saxophonist John Handy, a McClymond’s High School graduate, was presented with a Mayor of Oakland Proclamation declaring Feb. 12, as John Handy Day in the city. Handy is most notably known as the featured saxophonist for Charles Mingus on “Goodbye Pork Pie Hat” from the album “Mingus Ah Um” (1959) and on “Hard Work” from his own album “Hard Work” (1976).

Published

2 months ago

February 24, 2024

Oakland Post

(L-R) Del Handy, John Handy, Roger Glenn, and Joe Warner celebrate John Handy Day at Geoffrey’s Inner Circle, Oakland. Photo by Lady Bianca.

By Conway Jones

World-renowned jazz master saxophonist John Handy, a McClymond’s High School graduate, was presented with a Mayor of Oakland Proclamation declaring Feb. 12, as John Handy Day in the city.

Handy is most notably known as the featured saxophonist for Charles Mingus on “Goodbye Pork Pie Hat” from the album “Mingus Ah Um” (1959) and on “Hard Work” from his own album “Hard Work” (1976).

“John Handy is a jazz icon and an inspiration to musicians everywhere,” said Ayo Brame, a 16-year-old Oakland tenor saxophone player who is enrolled at the Oakland School for the Arts.

In celebration of this day, the reception in downtown Oakland at Geoffrey’s Inner Circle was a gathering of artists, young and old, coming together in his honor and celebrating his 91st birthday.

Handy presented a Saxophone Colossus free masterclass for musicians. This class afforded a rare opportunity to learn about the saxophone from an aficionado. The class was free and open to all – saxophonists, vocalists, aficionados, students, and casual listeners.

“As a longtime friend for over 60 years, and fellow musician who has had numerous opportunities to share the stage with John, it has always been a pleasure performing with him and hearing his creative interpretations of the music and his gift of ease inspiring the next generation of jazz musicians,” said Roger Glenn, a multi-instrumentalist.