Saline Assistant Superintendent Janice Warner Retiring This Year

Janice Warner, Saline Area Schools Assistant Superintendent of Finance, is retiring at the end of 2019.

Warner has been with the school district for more than 23 years.

The district posted the job on its website Oct. 19, listing a start date of Dec. 3.

Warner confirmed her intention to retire in an email Thursday.

“Yes, I’m retiring as of December 31. I’ve been with the schools for over 23 really wonderful years,” Warner wrote. “All three of my kids attended since kindergarten and graduated from Saline Schools. I was a room parent for several years and then started working for the schools when my youngest was 7.”

Warner said she’s enjoyed working as leader of the district’s finance department, but she wants to spend more time and energy on her family. She added that she hoped to find an opportunity to work for a smaller business or non-profit.

She said she’d miss the staff in the district – especially those in the finance office.

“They are an amazingly talented and hard-working group,” Warner wrote.

She said she enjoyed working the district’s “talented and dedicated,” administrative team, including Superintendent Scot Graden and Assistant Superintendents Steve Laatsch and Curt Ellis.

Saline Area Schools Board of Education President Timothy Austin said Warner has helped steer the school district back to sturdier financial ground.

“I can’t say enough about Janice, she has been an asset to our school district.  She helped navigate our district through some lean times a few years back, and continued helping our district move forward to where we are today,” Austin said. “On a personal level she has been very helpful explaining some of the nuances of school financing. As we are happy that Janice will get to start this new phase of her life, our district will miss her.”

Warner has worked in the district’s finance office for about 12 years. In 2012, she rose to the role of Assistant Superintendent of Finance. Superintendent Graden said Warner’s service in the finance department came during one of the most challenging times in the district’s history.

“She’s done an excellent job managing our finances in the most challenging times,” Graden said.

He said that from the passage of Proposal A to 2004, the way school funding operating was static. But things became increasingly challenging and more complex – especially since financial crisis of 2008.

“Over the last 10 years the changes have been extreme – with best practice dollars, performance calculations, an exponentially more complex state pension system, changes in property tax collection,” Graden said. “She stayed on top of all the changes and helped keep us ahead of the curve.”

One of her strengths, Graden said, is her ability to explain complex financial situations in laymen’s terms. Graden said Warner also recruited a talented staff that is dedicated to continuous improvement.

Warner and her husband, Dean, live in York Township, where they raised three children.

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