Charlotte Parker, the Lauderdale County School District director of finance, begins her retirement on Friday, Sept. 1, exactly 41 years after she began her career in the district.

She started her work with the district, she said recently in her office, as a media specialist.

“We would record programs that came on the educational channels,” she said. “We would tape them, and then teachers would request them and we would send them out. That’s how technology used to be.”

Parker worked at that position until November 1980, when she moved closer to her current position.

“I went to the finance department as the bookkeeper,” Parker said, and from there — in January 2001 — she became the director of finance.

Parker said she’s worked hard on communicating with other staff members, making sure she’s available to talk with them.

“It’s a team effort,” she said. “I keep them very aware, in the school board and the administration … That’s my job: to let them know what’s taking place financially.”

Communication is a quality that Lauderdale County School Board President Barbara Jones has noted, as well. Jones has known Parker for about 20 years.

“She doesn’t make decisions without talking to other people,” Jones said. “She has a very good connection with our superintendent and our assistant superintendent. She’s open-minded, but she has been very careful … about doing things legally and spending money without hurting our budget.”

Parker described, too, the way she can sense the presence of students, and the need to perform for them, as she goes about her work.

“You realize the impact you can have on students,” she said. “You feel more responsibility for the future … You want to do a good job no matter where you were, but (at a school district) you just feel this responsibility.”

Parker noted one persistent challenge in her work over the years.

“We’ve always had a lack of funding,” she said. “It was a challenge then, and it’s still a challenge today.”

What has changed, Parker said, is the enrollment trend in the district. Despite being among the largest school districts in the state, enrollment has been decreasing in recent years.

“If you’re losing enrollment, then you’re losing funding,” she said.

Moving into the district’s director-of-finance position is George Hedgepeth, who came from Union Public School District where he managed business for that district.

“I went back to college late in life,” Hedgepeth said. “I was a non-traditional college student. I was in insurance prior to that, working for State Farm for about seven years.”

After graduating from MSU-Meridian with a bachelor’s degree concentrating on accounting, Hedgepeth did work auditing school districts and then moved on to Union Public School District.

“I kind of fell in love with the different responsibilities that come along with school finance,” he said. “You don’t face the same challenges every day.”

One challenge he’s contemplated is the way Mississippi Adequate Education Program funding is determined.

“You get funding based on Average Daily Attendance,” he said, noting but your expenses — what you have to budget for — are based on student enrollment,” he said. “So if the Legislature could address that problem, it would help districts be better financially prepared to educate those children.”

A significant part of a district’s state — or MAEP — funding is determined by the Average Daily Attendance during October and November. Districts receive funding according to a “base student cost” for each student counted. Other factors contribute to MAEP funding, as well.

As Hedgepeth noted, bills have surfaced in the state Legislature to reform that method in the past, but for now the ADA-based funding remains.

As for Parker, she’s looking forward to more family contact.

“I have nine grandchildren,” she said. “Nine grandchildren I’d like to see a little more.”