Capo Taps New Finance Expert

Capistrano Unified School District has a new numbers guy.

At the Board of Trustees meeting Monday night, the board announced after coming out of closed session that it would soon make offer the job of deputy superintendent of business services to John Pappalardo, who holds a similar post for Pasadena Unified School District.

According to the Pasadena Star News, Pappalardo has accepted the offer.

For the past three years, Pappalardo’s position has been the chief financial officer for Pasadena Unified, according to the Star News. He is currently overseeing efforts to bridge an anticipated $17 million budget gap for the coming school year.

By comparison, Capo Unified officials have said .

Like Capo, Pasadena Unified provides K-12 education for students across several cities – including Pasadena, Altadena and Sierra Madre, although overall, it is a smaller district. It has 18,600 students to Capo’s nearly 50,000 students.

According to the Pasadena Sun, Pappalardo's last day will be April 13.

At the time of his hire in February 2009, then-Superintendent Edwin Diaz for Pasadena said Pappalardo’s “expertise and leadership will be immensely valuable as the district faces tremendous financial pressure and economic uncertainty in the months ahead,” according to a district press release.

Prior to joining Pasadena Unified, Pappalardo worked for the San Gabriel Unified School District, starting in 1996, first as assistant superintendent of business services and later as deputy superintendent.

During his tenure, he addressed the district’s negative general fund balance, increasing it by 4 percent with no personnel layoffs, the 2009 press release states. Pappalardo participated in employee negotiations as a member of the collective bargaining team, and oversaw risk management operations.

But his new position with Capistrano Unified will not be his first trip to Orange County. Previously, Pappalardo served as business services manager and director of data processing for the Fullerton Joint Union High School District

Ironically, the Fullerton school district is where Capo’s most recent finance head honcho now work. left CUSD in January for a similar position in Fullerton.