Lyons-Brookfield School District 103 is once again looking for a business manager after the school board voted Dec. 14 to accept the resignation of Sheila Johnson, effective Jan. 4. Johnson has worked as the school’s district’s business manager since April 2020.
Johnson did not return a call from the Landmark asking why she resigned and what she was going to do next. There is no longer a listing for Johnson in the staff directory on the school district’s website, but calls still go to her recorded voicemail message.
District 103 Superintendent Kristopher Rivera declined to say why Johnson resigned or what she will be doing after leaving District 103. But he praised Johnson for the work she did in her time at District 103 calling her an “ultimate professional.”
“Sheila’s phenomenal,” Rivera said. “I hate to lose her. She’s extremely competent, she’s positive, energetic, just always available for everything.”
Rivera said it is likely that the district would hire an interim business manager to serve until the summer when the district can more easily hire a full-time replacement.
Prior to Johnson being hired in 2020, a retired business manager, Marty McConahay, served in an interim business manager for six months after Sherry Reynolds-Whitaker resigned in 2019.
Rivera said that he reached out to McConahay about filling in once again, but McConahay is not available.
Rivera said he knew Johnson was leaving in November and has begun interviewing possible replacements.
“We’ve had a couple rounds of interviews so far,” Rivera said after the Dec. 14 school board meeting. “We had a second one today. Hopefully we’re going to make a determination really soon, because her end date is coming up.”
Whoever is hired as either an interim or permanent replacement will be the fifth person to occupy the business manager position in District 103 since 2016.
At the Dec. 14 meeting Johnson delivered a recorded presentation of the district’s annual tax levy which the board approved later in the meeting. The school board approved a 4.99 percent increase in its annual tax levy.
However, that increase will be reduced by the county clerk to comply with the Illinois tax cap law, which limits the increase in the annual tax extension to the consumer price index (CPI) or 5 percent, whichever is lower.
Since the 2021 levy uses the CPI from the previous year, the district’s tax extension will only be increased by 1.4 percent plus the value of any newly developed property that came on the tax rolls in the district this year.
“We’ve levied the maximum we can so that we don’t leave anything on the table,” Johnson said during her recorded presentation.”
Johnson said that the district is expected to get about $22 million in tax revenue next year.
