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Lake County Schools board approves Skyward finance platform after debate over cost and conversion
Summary
The Lake County Schools board approved a multi-year purchase of the Skyward finance and school-based accounting platform after staff described a large upfront cost, an anticipated January 2025 go-live and a period of dual-running with the district's current system.
The Lake County Schools Board of Education voted to approve the district's purchase of the Skyward finance and school-based accounting platform, after staff outlined conversion steps, costs and a plan to run the district's existing system in parallel during the transition.
Stacy, a district staff member who presented the plan, told the board the district's current accounting platform requires costly station licenses and manual paperwork that slow payments and encumbrance tracking. "This is gonna cost us about, you know, $1,314,000 dollars to go up," Stacy said during the presentation, adding that the platform's cost is tied to student numbers and that Skyward offers web-based school-level accounting the district lacks now.
The Skyward proposal drew detailed questions about the conversion. Staff said historical data would need to be retained in the existing system during the conversion and that some information would be entered manually into Skyward rather than migrated automatically. Staff also said the district expects to carry both systems for a period and to pay for historical access to the legacy software.
Board member Cody moved to approve the Skyward proposal; board member John Parker seconded. The board conducted a roll-call vote in which John Parker, Vivi Windsor, Diane Homer, Joanna Cook, Claudia Rodriguez, Jimmy Snyder and Deborah Hoffman recorded votes in favor; Justin Stanley voted no. The motion carried.
Staff estimated the district's ongoing annual Skyward support fee would be lower than some current costs. As one staff member explained: "the part that we pay every year would be that 13,000. We're right now, we're paying about 18 almost 19,000. It's actually cheaper." The presentation said the district aims for a January 2025 implementation date.
Board members and staff said they expect the new platform to accelerate encumbrance of funds when purchase requests are submitted and to produce more customizable reports than the district's current system.
The board did not adopt additional budget language at the meeting; the vote approved the Skyward contract proposal as presented and authorized staff to proceed with the conversion steps described.
The superintendent's office and finance staff will provide implementation timelines and training dates to the board as the conversion progresses.
