The Limestone County School system is one step closer to choosing a new chief school financial officer. On Dec. 19, the board publicly interviewed three of the five candidates for the position during a special-called session.

Initially, the board voted to interview the five candidates in a session that was closed to the public over concerns that the prospective CSFOs might face retribution from their current employers if their names were made public.

Evans Bailey, a legal expert with the Alabama Press Association, also warned that this sort of arrangement could be a violation of the Open Meetings Act.

School Board President Charles Shoulders said that the board directed the group leading the candidate search, the Alabama Association of School Boards to ask candidates if they would be willing to be interviewed in an open session.

“We were trying to protect the applicants, but what we found out was they were not concerned with keeping their names private,” Shoulders said.

The candidates

The board interviewed three candidates during the Tuesday meeting. All of them live in Limestone County, and none of them have past CSFO experience.

Ginger R. Dunn, an accounting manager at KBRwyle CAS Group since 2001, was the first to be interviewed. Dunn brings 20 years of accounting and 12 years of management experience to the table.

She possesses a Master of Accounting degree from the University of Alabama at Birmingham and has children in the Limestone County Schools system.

The board interviewed Donald R. Smith, a 1978 graduate of West Limestone High School and Operations Analyst Supervisor at Johnson Control Inc. since 2009, next. According to the cover letter he submitted to the AASB, Smith has 30 years of combined experience in multiple fields, including finance, logistics, material management, planning and problem solving. He holds a bachelor’s degree in business administration from Athens State University.

Melanie Delap, a certified public accountant, was the final interviewee of the night. According to her resume, she served as the director of Advancement Services at Jacksonville University from September 2003 until January of this year. Her cover letter states, “My experience lies in working at large organizations where there was daily interaction with a diverse population.”

According to her resume, she was responsible for the operations and accounting system of a $36-million foundation. She holds a Masters of Business Administration degree from Jacksonville State University.

Shoulders said he was pleased with the pool of applicants, based on their responses to a series of predetermined questions.

“We are looking for a strong, concise and knowledgeable person, because we are in a financial crisis right now,” Shoulders said. “We need a person who is able to look at the financial situation and lead the board in the right direction, so we can come out of this situation.”

“We feel that all of the candidates we’ve interviewed are qualified,” he said. ”And we are confident that we will find a CSFO for the system, and of the five, someone will come out of that pool to serve Limestone County.”

Two more candidates, Cynthia “Robin” Collum and Kimberly Hubbard, will be interviewed Thursday starting at 4:30 p.m. The board plans to follow the interviews with an open discussion time, where the candidates’ qualifications will be parsed out.

Shoulders said that the board hopes to be able to recommend a final CSFO candidate to Superintendent Dr. Tom Sisk at their next regularly scheduled meeting Jan. 11. The board has not yet determined a date to vote on the final candidate.