Litchfield district recovers nearly $34,000 in outstanding facility-use fees

By Stacy Mantle
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Litchfield Elementary School District has recovered nearly $34,000 in outstanding facility-use fees since August as part of an effort to modernize how the district manages rentals, payments and use of its buildings.

Chief Financial Officer Michael Vaughn presented the figure to the Litchfield Elementary governing board Sept. 22 during a report highlighting work completed by the district's business and human resources departments over the summer.

Vaughn said staff have worked through outstanding balances while changing how organizations reserve and pay for district facilities.

“Since August, we've collected just under $34,000 in old, outstanding balances,” Vaughn told the board.

The district is moving toward electronic invoicing and credit card payments for facility rentals.

Eventually, Vaughn said, the system is expected to integrate facility reservations with district operations so an approved rental can automatically trigger services such as air conditioning rather than requiring staff to coordinate those arrangements separately.

Thousands of invoices, stipends processed

The facility-use work was one piece of a larger summer workload for the district's finance and purchasing departments.

Between June and August, accounts payable staff processed nearly 2,700 invoices spanning two fiscal years, including approximately 1,700 invoices tied to fiscal year 2026.

District staff also processed 1,267 requisitions as departments established their fiscal year 2027 budgets.

From May through August, the district processed more than 1,700 employee stipends, Vaughn said. Purchasing staff issued 664 purchase orders during the summer and also held a “Buyers Boot Camp” to provide employees with additional training on district purchasing procedures.

Warehouse employees assisted with school moves and prepared starter classroom kits for the opening of Troy Gilbert Elementary School, while fixed-assets staff completed another round of physical inventories covering approximately half of the district.

HR hired and onboarded employees

Executive Director of Human Resources Sandra Satterfield also outlined work completed by her department before the start of the school year.

The district onboarded 65 new certified employees before district training began and another 67 classified employees before the first day of school.

Human resources also participated in seven job fairs and helped 11 employees return to the district through the ESI Encore retire-rehire program.

Satterfield said the department is nearing completion of a three-year effort to review district job descriptions and has continued work on employee evaluations, performance pay and professional development.

The district also reported a 96.9% completion rate during annual benefits enrollment, with nine district sites reaching 100%.

A change to the district's health savings account process reduced the time required for employees to receive funds from approximately three weeks to about 24 hours by switching to electronic transfers, Satterfield said.

Board members thanked the departments for work that largely takes place outside classrooms but supports day-to-day school operations.

Board President Melissa Zuidema noted the expenditures associated with those departments may not appear as direct classroom spending but are necessary to keep schools operating.

The district currently serves about 10,400 K-8 students across 16 schools and employs more than 1,400 people, according to district information.

Editor’s note:   A grant from the Arizona Local News Foundation made this story possible. The foundation awarded 15 newsrooms to pay for solutions-focused education reporters for two years. Please submit comments at yourvalley.net/letters or email them to AzOpinions@iniusa.org. We are committed to publishing a wide variety of reader opinions, as long as they meet our Civility Guidelines.

Stacy Mantle
Education Solutions Reporter

smantle@iniusa.org

Meet Stacy
Stacy Mantle is joining the team at Independent Newsmedia, Inc. as an Education Solutions journalist, thanks to a grant from the Arizona Community Collaborative. She has a long history in education that ranges from teaching junior high and middle school to developing curriculum and standards-based assessments.

Community: A longtime advocate for animal welfare, Stacy is deeply involved in rescue efforts and volunteers with several nonprofit organizations.

Random Fact: Once upon a time, she shared her home with a pet coyote and two wolf hybrids. The experiences were wild enough to become the subject of her first book!

Education: She holds a BA in English with a minor in Political Science, a Post-baccalaureate in Secondary Education, and an MBA with a emphasis on Marketing.

Hobbies: In her spare time, Stacy writes fast-paced urban fantasy novels, crafts small-batch artisan soap, and is always up for hiking or off-roading through the Arizona wilderness with her husband of 23 years.