The following short video of Shakeel Yusuf, chief financial officer for Prince William County Public Schools, Virginia was one of seven we filmed at the Government Finance Officers Association’s annual conference in Orlando, Florida, between June 11 and June 13.

The previous videos, which were posted over the last couple of weeks, were with Jennifer Becker, financial services director for the city of Burbank, California, which can be seen here; Sharon Edmundson, director of municipal finance programs with the North Carolina League of Municipalities, which can be seen here; David Goldman, deputy city administrator for Oak Harbor, Washington, which can be seen here;  Zach Markovits vice president and local practice lead at Results for America, which you can view here; and GFOA Executive Director Chris Morrill, which is available here. 

We will continue sharing each of those short videos over the coming weeks. 

In this one, Yusuf, delves into some of the challenges his county’s school system faces and some potential solutions for dealing with them. In addition, as with the previous two videos, he voices his desire for a financial reporting system that is more transparent and comprehensible to stakeholders than the one currently in place.

A few highlights from the video:

• "At Prince William County, one of the first things we did in the last couple of years is we aligned our budgets to the strategic plan, and we also made sure that we had a focus on adequacy and equity in our budgeting.”

  
  

• "What is important in school districts is that everyone graduates on time, that we provide them with the right types of skills that are necessary for them to be successful citizens and . . that there is a level of achievement that meets standards. One of the things we have struggled with is our financial systems do not have the structures in place to support this.”

  
  

• “The advent of AI has also given users a lot of tools where they can look at data and analyze it and ask very, very significant questions. So, as entities, we need to embrace AI.”

(In 2023, we also produced a number of filmed interviews at GFOA’s annual conference in Portland, which we ran as one big feature under the headline “Voices from the GFOA.”)

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