While Dr. Michelle Reid’s imminent departure to become the new superintendent of Northshore School District has evinced some angst among community leaders and district parents, South Kitsap School District board vice president Chris Lemke nonetheless says he’s thankful.

Thankful that the district was able to benefit from Reid’s skills and vision during her three years as superintendent. And, in turn, happy the district could provide Reid an opportunity to experience “getting her feet wet running a school district.”

Lemke outlined why the Reid-South Kitsap collaboration has been so fruitful: Her major contribution just after being hired was to help revive the district from its troubling financial state.

Shortly after Reid was hired, she brought in Debra Aungst, a former Puyallup School District administrator and an expert on state school funding, to review South Kitsap’s shaky finances.

Aungst concluded in her report to Reid that the district’s finances needed immediate attention. Using a state schools financial matrix, she found the district was “three steps away” from a financial warning. The Port Orchard Independent reported at the time that among the state’s 295 school districts, 270 were in better shape than South Kitsap.

Faced with that alarming news, Reid tightened expenditures and assigned greater accountability to department heads in managing their finances. Those moves allowed the budget balance to increase from $4.9 million in 2012-13 to $8.5 million in 2014-2015.

Lemke said that Reid, whom he called a good fiscal manager, saw the need to act quickly by bringing in additional financial expertise. “Michelle kept us on track to get us into better financial shape. She was able to turn us around.”

Even before the new superintendent signed her contract, Lemke said Reid assisted district officials in negotiating a three-year teachers contract that he said was “fair and equitable, and didn’t attack our reserves.”

Other moves Reid made to right the district’s financial ship: Lemke said she spearheaded a move to change South Kitsap’s executive limitation policy, a technical accounting change essential to allowing the district to grow its reserve balance to the 6-percent range. The benefits: It would stave off bonding and payroll worries if the state was unable to “make payroll to us.”

She took another big step, he said, by reconstituting the school district’s community budget committee. “We got some key people on the committee, including the president of Kitsap Bank, and were able to come up with a long-range fiscal and facilities plan to use as guiding paths to keep us on track financially.”

Reid also recognized that an exodus of South Kitsap kindergartners to other districts would be a significant detriment to South Kitsap’s future well-being. Lemke said Reid asked district staffers to find out how many children were leaving — and why. Their conclusion was that parents weren’t satisfied with the educational offerings in South Kitsap.

“Consequently, we’ve gotten a lot more kids back into our district because of our all-day kindergarten, as well as our AP (advanced placement) program and Spanish immersion at the elementary level. All those things are keeping us stronger and keeping our kids in the community.

“Michelle said, ‘Hey, we need to fund this. We need to find money from elsewhere because we’re losing kids.’ And once we lose a child to another district’s kindergarten program, they have a tendency to stay in that school.

“We got some kids back because of that smart decision.”

As far as Lemke is concerned, Reid was a blessing for South Kitsap, and her contributions will continue to pay dividends.

“What she brought to the district is strong leadership and a caring for the community. She moved right into the community — she ‘lived’ the community — and she belonged to groups in the community.

“Her solid, innovative ideas has brought South Kitsap back to being a prominent district.”