Milwaukee Public Schools Chief Financial Officer Martha Kreitzman has retired, school board members announced Thursday before voting on a budget for the upcoming school year amid a crisis of public trust.

Records show Kreitzman signed a resignation form June 4, with her retirement taking effect at the end of the day June 12.

Kreitzman is the third MPS official to lose a job after revelations that the district was using an error-prone accounting system and is nine months late to submit key financial reports to state officials.

MPS Superintendent Keith Posley resigned the night of June 3. The district's comptroller, Alfredo Balmaseda, said he was fired the next day.

The consequences continue to roll out. Gov. Tony Evers is hiring auditors to take a close look at MPS operations and academic practices. A new coalition seeks to recall four school board members.

The state Department of Public Instruction is withholding funding from MPS and reviewing how errors in MPS data might impact the aid the district receives for the next school year. The school board plans to vote on a budget Thursday night.

Top administrators like Posley and Kreitzman have been criticized not only for allowing the district's accounting to become so muddled, but also for failing to communicate the depth of the problems to school board members.

The announcement of Kreitzman's departure was unsurprising, given the district's recent draft of an action plan showed the district was already working on a plan to find an interim replacement for Kreitzman.

School board members said Thursday that the district's new financial consultant, Todd Gray, would "manage day-to-day financial operations moving forward."

Gray has already been helping the district with its action plan, which must be approved by state officials before they will release the funding they have withheld from the district. MPS submitted a draft of that plan Tuesday, and state officials said they were hopeful about approving a plan by the end of the week.

Contact Rory Linnane at [email protected]. Follow her on X (Twitter) at @RoryLinnane. 

This article originally appeared on Milwaukee Journal Sentinel: MPS chief financial officer retires immediately amid accounting crisis