May 8—BYRON, Minn. — Following a period of more than eight months without a full-time person in the position, Byron Public Schools has hired a new director of finance.
The Byron School Board unanimously approved the hiring of Shawn Elsbury on Monday. Superintendent Mike Neubeck emphasized the fact that Elsbury has not just a financial background, but one that includes experience in the realm of education.
"Most people who have applied have not had school finance experience," Superintendent Mike Neubeck said. "To be able to find somebody that has school finance experience that lives in Southeast Minnesota that would like to come work for us ... is awesome."
As the district's new finance director, Elsbury will have a salary of $130,000 for 2025-26 and $132,000 for the 2026-27 year.
Elsbury is coming to Byron from Pine Island, where he worked in the business office before becoming the district's finance director.
According to his resume, he also worked for the city of Rochester, the city of St. Charles, as well as private firms. From 2005-10, he was a senior auditor for the state of Iowa.
During the meeting when the school board approved his hiring, Elsbury said that he has worked as an auditor for cities, counties, state agencies and school districts.
Byron Public Schools has had a number of people in the role throughout the last year and a half. In December 2023, Todd Lechtenberg left the position after four years. Two months later in February 2024, the district hired Ashley Bocchi, who left later that same year in August.
Following that, the district hired interim finance director Julie Cink, who was followed by another interim director, Dan Pyan. Pyan was still consulting for the district when the school board approved Elsbury's hiring on Monday.
That time of turnover coincided with a financial turmoil in the district, including large-scale reductions totaling $3.2 million between 2024-25 and 2025-26. Neubeck attributed the need for the cuts to a number of factors, including inflation, the rising cost of health care, and new state mandates.
In October 2024, Neubeck wrote in an update to the district about the ongoing financial situation, explaining that it was complicated by having two different finance directors during the same year, "each with their own accounting systems." In the same update, he explained that Cink, the interim director, had "discovered that some financial records were either incomplete, incorrectly processed, or, in some cases, not processed at all."