FY24 A.I. Regional School District Budgets and Assessments

Michelle is in her 18^th year at the Department of Elementary and Secondary Education and serves as the Regional Governance Coordinator in the Office of Regional Governance in the Center for School Finance and District Support. Prior to returning to the Office of Regional Governance in 2019, Michelle held several roles at the Department, including monitoring public school districts, collaboratives, and approved special education schools and investigating complaints filed concerning districts. As the Regional Governance Coordinator, she focuses on issues related to regional school districts, including amendments to regional agreements, fiscal oversight, and specific grants for regionalization and regional school districts.

Stephen Hemman was the Executive Director of the Massachusetts Association of Regional Schools (MARS) from 2008 to 2015. He has spent his career in educations as a teacher, vice-principal, Business Administrator, Assistant Superintendent and from 2000 to 2008 Superintendent of the Narragansett Regional School District. He holds Bachelor’s Degree from Florida Southern College, Masters in Education from Boston University, MBA for the University of Vermont, and Educational Doctoral Degree from the University of Mass at Lowell. He has held licenses as a school superintendent, business administrator, and middle school principal. He has taught graduate courses as an adjunct professor with Fitchburg State University and Boston University. He is currently the lead consultant for the MARS Consulting Group

Chris started in the Department of Elementary and Secondary Education over 45 years ago in the School Building Assistance Program working on construction related issues as well as regional organizational issues.  Chris worked in the School Finance area during the early years of the educational reform law in 1993 on the new Chapter 70 formula and the revised financial chart of accounts.  From 1999 to 2004 she served as the director of the School Building Assistance Program before becoming Director of Regional Governance.  Chris retired in 2016 but has  continued to work in the Office of Regional Governance  as a consultant, focusing primarily on issues relating to the formation and expansion of regional school districts, the updating of existing regional agreements and issues relating to regional budgeting and finance.

Michael Knight, MBA is the School Business Administrator Greater Lowell Regional Vocational Technical School District. Michael has worked in the field of school business for 6 years and was credited with implementing cost saving strategies saving over $400,000 annually in his previous school district, Groton-Dunstable Regional. Previous to working in school business Michael worked in technology and construction sales.

Michael’s goal serving as a board member would be to help foster an environment of continuous learning and thought share within MASBO. The greatest strength MASBO has is the membership, there are millions of hours of experience collectively held by the MASBO membership and finding ways to share and memorialize the lessons learned from this experience would be his top priority.

When not crunching budget numbers, Michael enjoys playing golf, hiking with his dog, and watching sports.