The announcement comes after former HCISD CFO Randall Rau was approved as the new Dripping Springs CFO in late April.
The details
Ottmers comes to HCISD with about 40 years of experience across finance and public education fields.
Ottmers worked in accounting for nine years before moving to public education, which was inspired by an experience judging a national high school Business Professionals of America competition, a news release states.
Ottmers served as a business teacher at San Antonio’s Southwest High School, then started working at the business office at Northeast ISD in San Antonio, working in accounting and internal audit fields. She later worked as Fredericksburg ISD's assistant superintendent for business and finance. Most recently, she held the chief finance officer position at Ector County ISD in Odessa, which has over 33,000 students, the news release states.
HCISD Superintendent Eric Wright said her experience will be a benefit to the district, especially as it faces financial strain.
“There are very few others in the state who could even come close to matching her expertise and commitment to public education finance,” he said in the news release. “We face challenging times ahead in our district preparing for extraordinary growth, while also navigating the landscape of public education funding. Deborah is very much a welcomed addition to our team.”
Ottmers said she is committed to ensuring student success while managing the goals of district leadership and community members.
“I believe the financial services department in a school district is much more than merely managing financial and operational resources and ensuring the efficient and effective use of taxpayers’ funds,” she said in the news release. “The department must also support the goals and priorities of the board, district, campuses and community to educate Hays CISD’s most important resources—the students.”
Additionally, she said she is looking forward to continuing her career in public education finance.
“I work for school districts because I find that it is the most rewarding job,” she said at the June 4 board meeting. “We have a purpose, and that purpose is our students and their future. As a [certified public accountant], I could work in any business that I wanted to, but none of them have the rewards that education does.”
What else
Ottmers teaches classes and other educational workshops for the Texas Association of School Business Officials, or TASBO. Additionally, she served on the TASBO board of directors from 2008 to 2015 and served a term as president of the organization.
She earned a bachelor’s degree in business administration in accounting from Southwest Texas State University, now Texas State University. She earned a Master of Business of Administration from The University of Texas at San Antonio, is a CPA and is a registered Texas school business administrator.
