Top administrators flee Iowa City school district amid financial crisis

IOWA CITY — Three of Iowa City schools top administrators are leaving the district this month and Superintendent Matt Degner is changing roles, which school board members say is an opportunity for a “fresh start,” “reset,” “new beginnings” and “more rigorous oversight” amid an ongoing financial crisis. Iowa City schools’ Deputy Superintendent Chace Ramey, Executive Director of Secondary Schools Lucas Ptacek and Director of Human Resources Nick Proud have resigned effective July 1, after accepting new positions in other school districts. Degner will move into the role of executive director of secondary schools. The school board expects to have an interim superintendent in place by July 1, before they begin their search this fall for a permanent replacement. The Iowa City school board in January began uncovering a financial crisis that included a lack of internal controls, funds being deposited into incorrect accounts, payroll costs that have increased 9 percent over the past year — much higher than anticipated — and cash-flow issues that resulted in temporary funding needs and multiple interfund loans. As a result, the school board has begun trimming spending, with many cuts affecting students in classrooms. More cuts are expected. These problems appear to have been known by district administrators for years, and no action was taken to address them. School board member Jennifer Horn-Frasier said there had been pressure from the public for a change in leadership. She said it was “important for us to understand what failed in our systems and fix it.” “I think that one thing in a situation like this that can be helpful is to have a bit of a fresh start with new people and leaders, and I think that however it happened, we are entering a phase where we will have that opportunity to build forward with new leaders, build forward with much more rigorous oversight, and I’m very glad about that,” Horn-Frasier said. “In some cases, dissatisfaction expressed by the community has gotten to the level of distracting from the really important work that has to be done,” Horn-Frasier said. The board is limited in what it “can and cannot do” when it comes to employee contracts, Horn-Fraiser said. “The board did a lot of personnel-related thinking,” she said. The school board has had several closed meetings this year “to evaluate professional competency.” In April, the school board heard from its legal counsel regarding an Iowa Code section addressing superintendent and administrator contracts. “I think our leaders have to make decisions for themselves about what’s best for them, and I know all of them are thinking about what’s best for the district,” Horn-Frasier said. Here’s who’s leaving Degner in May announced he was leaving the district’s top leadership position because of his mother’s diagnosis with terminal cancer. She died earlier this month. Degner was approved by the board last month as the district’s next executive director of secondary education effective July 1, in a 4-2 vote with Jayne Finch and Mitch Lingo opposing. Lisa Williams was not at the meeting. The school board plans to have an interim superintendent in place by July 1, before they begin their search for a permanent replacement. Ramey, on June 5, was appointed by the Council Bluffs school board as the district’s interim superintendent effective July 1. He was given a one-year contract and will replace Vickie Murillo, who is resigning this month for a Missouri school district. Proud, Iowa City district’s director of human resources, is resigning effective July 1. Proud has taken a job in the Davenport Community School District as principal of its McKinley Elementary School. A job posting for an interim director of human resources was posted by the district June 10. The application deadline is Friday. Ptacek, currently the Iowa City district’s executive director of secondary schools, is resigning and has taken a job in the Linn-Mar Community School District as its director of high school teaching and learning, effective July 1. The district’s special education director, Ashley Reedy, also resigned in May in a special meeting of the Iowa City school board. Ptacek, Proud and Ramey declined interviews for this report. School board member Finch said as of Tuesday, the Iowa City school board still had not been notified that Ramey had taken the position as interim superintendent in Council Bluffs, a decision made almost two weeks ago by the Council Bluffs School Board. Emails: ‘Fundamental errors’ Emails obtained through a public-records request and shared with the Gazette show “fundamental errors” were flagged in the district’s accounting — including improper reconciliation and poor documentation and organization — to school leaders in October 2024, more than a year before the problems began to be uncovered by the school board. In emails, the Iowa City school’s Director of Financial Reporting Alan Moran detailed how these problems were holding up the completion of the fiscal year 2023 audit, which was delivered to the Iowa City school board a year and a half past the state deadline. “Fundamentally, we are just seeing things in the preparation of these reports that keep requiring correction, so that we can get the reports to simply balance,” Moran wrote in an email to Superintendent Matt Degner, Deputy Superintendent Chace Ramey and then-CFO Adam Kurth. Kurth resigned in November 2025. His replacement, Pat Moore, began as CFO in May. “Account reconciliations are often just ledger activity and contain no actual reconciling detail, if the reconciliations were there at all,” wrote Moran, who joined the Iowa City district in September 2024. Dozens of emails between Moran, Kurth, Degner and Ramey repeat these concerns. “I don’t believe there’s an excuse for that kind of lack of oversight, and I want to ensure we do not put ourselves in this position again,” Horn-Frasier told The Gazette Monday. Horn-Frasier said her decision to retain Degner as an administrator was one she “did not take lightly,” and she made it “after considering all of the factors.” “There was nothing that I could hold up to say that I should have voted a different way,” Horn-Frasier said. School board member Lisa Williams said Monday she had “not been told” there was prior knowledge by administrators of the district’s financial issues. “It’s impossible for me to know what another person knew. It’s tough because there are so many issues with financial mismanagement and irregularities that it’s important to understand the nuance. It’s the CFO’s job to make sure accounts are properly reconciled. It’s the board’s responsibility to make sure the district is financially healthy,” Williams said. ‘Loss of knowledge’ The exodus of top administrators is a “critical loss of knowledge” for the district, Williams said. “The district has a financial crisis that it’s confronting. It’s confronting declining enrollment and a host of other issues. Filling these vacancies is going to be critical,” Williams said. Williams said Ramey, Proud and Ptacek “all have individual reasons for leaving.” She said she was “hesitant to draw any relationship between the financial crisis and departures.” “I don’t think I personally am going to read too much into it other than it’s tough when you lose that many people at the same time,” Williams said. “If you start to look at it from an individual level, perhaps you can see there isn’t a connection between the two.” Finch said the change in leadership was “an opportunity for a reset.” “It’s very important we make the right decisions in replacing some of these key positions,” Finch said. New leadership School board member Mitch Lingo said there was leadership turnover “at every major organization” when uncertainty arises such as the district’s financial upheaval. “The board’s responsibility is to bring on replacements that can navigate the change themselves and have a strong background in those areas to make sure we have an o