Aycha Sawa Faces New Challenges as MPS Financial Officer

Aycha Sawa. Photo courtesy of the Friends of Aycha Sawa.

On September 3, Aycha Sawa became the Milwaukee Public Schools‘ Chief Financial Officer, replacing Todd Gray who was serving as interim CFO. Sawa, the former Milwaukee city comptroller, is part of new leadership team seeking to right the financially troubled district. The problems arose under Superintendent Keith P. Posley, who resigned in June, after the the federal government withheld funding to MPS for violations in the district’s Head Start program and the state Department of Public Instruction threatened to withhold funding because MPS was eight months behind submitting required enrollment documents.

A panel of a half dozen MPS administrators interviewed several candidates for the CFO position. Because of a signed agreement between MPS and DPI, the Milwaukee School Board did not need to approve the selection of Sawa which is the normal district procedure. Superintendent Eduardo Galvan made the final selection which was the consensus of the panel.

Sawa comes to MPS with an extensive finance background. She is a graduate of UW-School of Business, a certified internal auditor and public accountant. Beginning in 2004, she held various positions both in corporate and state government before joining Milwaukee city government in 2010. There she rose from auditor to audit manager to deputy comptroller in 2017. From that position, she ran for the vacant comptroller position in 2020.

Under Sawa’s leadership, the city received the Certificate of Excellence from the Government Finance Officers Association in 2023 and 2024. The city’s press release states that it “is the highest form of recognition in the area of governmental accounting and financial reporting.”

However, she elected not to run for a second term in 2024, stepping down from the post in April.

“It was a personal decision of mine. I wanted a different opportunity, and I wanted a different challenge. It had nothing to do with the organization,” she told Urban Milwaukee.

She decided to apply for the MPS CFO position. “I am an MPS parent and a Milwaukee taxpayer. I live in the city of Milwaukee. I care deeply about the community,” says Sawa. She has one child in the first grade in MPS, another will start kindergarten next year. “Kids are our future,” she adds.

She will earn a salary of $200,000, up considerably from her pay as comptroller, as last reported, of $125,917.

As the city’s comptroller, Sawa was independently elected working with an independently elected mayor and Common Council. That is not the case with Milwaukee Public Schools. The chief financial officer must answer directly to the school superintendent who, in turn, is an employee of the district answerable to an elected school board. Her ability to answer directly to her immediate boss, the superintendent, and the school board above, and ultimately to the citizens of Milwaukee, will go beyond just her financial skills, testing her political acumen.

Striking the right balance between her obligations to the superintendent and the board can be tricky. In Posley’s case, both he and his administration withheld information from the board. “My boss is the superintendent,” says Sawa. But “making sure the board gets the best information possible” is also her duty, she adds.

Galvan is only interim superintendent. A new superintendent has the right to establish his or her own cabinet which could include replacing Sawa at the end of this school year. That puts a little additional pressure on Sawa to handle the politics adroitly.

School board directors have long complained that previous superintendents have kept their administrative staff at arm’s length, away from interacting with board members. With the resignation of Posley, board members have found new freedom to speak with MPS staff members. Superintendent Galvan is only interim, and a new superintendent may retighten that control over staff.

Sawa says she meets with superintendent Galvan daily and with Matthew Chason, director of the office of accountability and efficiency, often. Chason directs much of the efforts to meet the corrective actions for that lack of data reporting to DPI.

However, Sawa has yet to meet with any school board directors.

Urban Milwaukee reached out to several key board members to see if they were, in turn, reaching out to Sawa. District 7 Director Henry Leonard said that he will meet with her soon. Leonard wants to know if she is willing to have the courage to make recommendations that might prove to be unpopular. Considering the poorly handled reporting to DPI, “What will you do insure that like this will happen again?” Leonard says he will ask.

Sawa points to her independence regarding the 2020 agreement the city signed with the Wisconsin convention center, whereby the city backed a loan guarantee needed for expansion for the now renamed Baird Center in return for revenue sharing by the center. She bucked the mayor and some council members, testifying in 2023 that the original agreement was a bad deal for the city.

“My role in the city was as the independent watchdog; to look out for the finances of the city. I was accountable to the taxpayers,” she says.

Which is how she intends to operate in her new job, Sawa says. “I see myself in the same role.”