A former school accountant raised in Senegal has been credited with turning around Minneapolis’ struggling school budget. Ibrahima Diop, now chief financial officer for Minneapolis Public Schools, erased a $33 million deficit, balanced the budget and managed to do it without job cuts.
Diop manages a $945-million budget that covers the needs of more than 36,000 students and more than 3,500 teachers in the district.
“Having erased a whopping $33 million deficit last spring — the largest gap in recent history — his 2019-20 proposed budget is balanced without having to lay off staff or dip into the district’s rainy-day fund,” the Star Tribune reported.
“I have to manage the district’s funds well because if I don’t, the kids will suffer, teachers will suffer and parents will be angry,” Diop said.
According to Minneapolis Superintendent Ed Graff, Diop has turned things around.
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“Educational financing is very complicated and complex,” Graff said. “In my time in education and in leadership positions, I have worked with five chief finance officers and he is by far one of the best.”
Born and raised in Senegal, Diop he studied constitutional law at a university named after his uncle, Cheikh Anta Diop. Diop’s father was a veteran of World War II in Europe and fought for the independence of Senegal.
In 1992, Diop, who is the middle of seven children, came to the United States. Diop earned his bachelor’s degree in business finance investment and banking from the University of Nebraska. Following this, he went to work as a classroom aide in the Omaha Public Schools. During this time he continued his studies as well and received a master’s degree in international economics from Creighton University.
After applying for an accounting position in the school district, Diop got the job and became the youngest in the finance department. He worked his way up to director of finance, accounting, budget compensation and benefits. But after spending 20 years with Omaha Public Schools, he realized he would never be promoted to lead the department. He left.
When he was tapped in 2015 for the CFO post for Minneapolis Public Schools, he found he had to “close a $27 million budget gap at a time when the district’s rainy-day fund was being exhausted. He also discovered that district credit cards were being misused by some for unauthorized purchases and for personal use, and that the finance department was severely short-staffed,” the Star Tribune reported.
Diop requited a former colleague from Omaha who is a forensic accountant to examine how the financial health of a district had gotten so bad that the district had back-to-back budget deficits.
“With the challenges that kept coming, I kept reminding myself what my mentor told me that there is nothing in finance that I haven’t seen that I cannot surmount,” Diop said.
Diop went to work to get rid of the deficit — he closed down “unpopular programs that didn’t yield results, cracked down on employees who were misusing district money, and pulled in $22 million that had been invested elsewhere,” the Star Tribune reported.
Eventually he and other district leaders cut $18.4 million from the district’s headquarters and slashed nearly $15 million from school buildings.
In his 2019-20 proposed budget is totally different than the budget Diop inherited. It actually adds “$4 million to the district’s rainy-day fund, ensures predictable staffing in schools, prevents layoffs and for the first time in recent memory, the district is self-insured,” the Star Tribune reported.
Diop also launched a new budget software system and created a comprehensive budget book.
“I’m operating from a place of scarcity,” Diop said. “I cannot go out and generate more revenue, but one thing I can do is to make sure our limited resources are well managed.”
