Erin Lillibridge

[KHTS] – Hart School District officials held a special meeting Tuesday to appoint a new chief financial officer to oversee the finances for the Santa Clarita Valley’s junior high and high school district.

Erin Lillibridge was expected to succeed Sue Hoerber, who retired at the end of November, a Hart district official said Tuesday.

The meeting took place at 7:30 a.m. at the Hart district office on 21515 Center Pointe Parkway.

Lillibridge is a 1995 Hart High graduate who earned a bachelor’s degree from UC Irvine and a master’s in finance from UCLA. She worked in the California Department of Finance before serving as chief business official (CFO) of the K-12 Nuview Union School District in the Riverside County town of Nuevo.

Lillibridge is married to Frank Oviedo, the city of Santa Clarita’s assistant city manager.

“(Lillibridge) comes with a fairly broad experience base,” Hart Board President Steve Sturgeon said, “beginning with the state level, where she worked with the state board of education, and subsequently with the Riverside County Board of Education.”

The Nuview Union School District has more than 2,700 students in two K-5 schools, one 6-8 middle school and one charter high school.

The search for a new CFO was published on the Hart District’s website, and a number of applicants were interviewed, Sturgeon said.

A panel of administrators and staff conducted an interview that included simulating challenges for the applicants to see how they would respond.

The appointment isn’t expected to be effective until Jan. 6, and the contract is expected to be approved at a Jan. 22 meeting, Sturgeon said.

Hoerber’s skill made her an asset for the district that will be hard to replace, Sturgeon said.

The Hart School District oversees approximately 22,000 students at all of the Santa Clarita Valley’s junior highs and high schools.

“(Hoerber) had 28 wonderful years with the Hart district,” Sturgeon said. “It’s going to be a challenge, there’s a lot of institutional knowledge that left the building.”

However the board is optimistic about her replacement, who they hope will be around for a while.

“She seems quite capable and I’m quite confident she’ll do a good job for us,” Sturgeon said.

UPDATE from Hart School District:

The Hart District Governing Board appointed Erin Lillibridge as Chief Financial Officer at a Special Meeting held Tuesday, December 17, 2013 at 7:30 am. Lillibridge’s appointment follows the retirement of Sue Hoerber, who worked for the District for 27 years. Lillibridge will begin her position in January.

Lillibridge has been working in school finance for nearly 10 years, beginning in 2004 when she was hired as an assistant budget analyst with the California Department of Finance in Sacramento. At Finance, she was responsible for monitoring and projecting the state’s largest expenditure item, K-12 revenue limit funding, which at the time was over $30 billion in state general fund, as well as funding for charter schools, county offices of education, and the California Department of Education. Over the course of five years with Finance, she was promoted up the ranks to principal budget analyst, a role where she was responsible for estimating and tracking the Proposition 98 minimum guarantee for schools throughout the State.

Her family moved to Riverside County in 2009, where Lillibridge worked at the Riverside County Office of Education overseeing the County Superintendent’s fiscal oversight responsibilities for 23 school districts with $3 billion in total operating budgets countywide. Lillibridge currently serves as the chief business official for the Nuview Union School District, located in Nuevo, CA, where she oversees all financial and business office functions, as well as facilities, maintenance, transportation, and nutrition.

Lillibridge grew up in the Santa Clarita Valley and is a graduate of Hart High School. She holds a master’s degree in public policy from UCLA, and a bachelor’s degree in applied ecology from UC Irvine. She has been married to Frank Oviedo for 10 years. Oviedo is the current assistant city manager of the City of Santa Clarita. They have two children, a five-year-old son, and a seven-year-old daughter, who attend elementary school in the Saugus Union School District.