Ned Draper Leaves, Chariho Looking for New Finance Director

By Cynthia Drummond for BRVCA

Ned Draper, who has served as the Director of Administration and Finance for the Chariho School District since 2020, has left the district and has already begun working at the University of Rhode Island’s College of Business as its Chief Business Officer.

“I think URI has a pretty broad and ambitious strategic plan, and I think the opportunity to both return to that environment as well as jump in at a time when they’re really looking to expand their reach and their capabilities is exciting,” he said.

The Chariho Years

Draper said he had enjoyed being a member of the Chariho administrative team and working with Superintendent of Schools, Gina Picard.

“Chariho’s got a great culture, and by that, I mean the school district as well as the community,” he said. “There’s a lot of support for the schools and what they do, and the folks who work for the district are very vested in it, and I had the benefit of working with Gina, who pretty much started around the same time, so she was really able to define direction for the district and I was able to participate in that.”

Recalling the COVID pandemic, Draper said he believed that Chariho had risen to the challenges.

“Getting through COVID, as much in-person as we were able to do, was really good.,” he said. “The academic achievements that the teaching staff and the students and the parents were able to accomplish throughout all of that was remarkable.”

A long term challenge, Draper said, has been finding funding to maintain and improve Chariho’s facilities.

“Adequately meeting the capital needs, that’s been an ongoing challenge. Obviously, the process to get funded. On the one hand, it makes it difficult to get resources sometimes, when you have a failed budget vote or a failed bond vote. Alternatively, it’s a challenge and an opportunity, right? So, the challenge is the community has to be bought in to the goals, but alternatively, you get honest feedback, and you adjust,” he said.

Communication Skills

Draper holds a Master’s degree in management from Salve Regina University and was often recognized at Chariho for his ability to explain complex subjects in ways that everyone could understand. It’s a skill he said he had made a conscious effort to develop.

“That’s certainly cultivated,” he said. “I started out in public [sector] years ago and prior to that, I was at the Rhode Island School of Design. So, you had a very diverse population there that had different expectations of budgets and resources, so through that process initially, and my public experience before, there was a lot of time spent presenting things in different ways, particularly to visual learners, so that it was understandable.”

Chariho, Draper noted, takes public participation to another level.

“…there’s so much public participation required to move finances forward, you really have to come up with a way to present information that a very wide audience can grasp and work with,” he said.

Gina Picard said Draper had introduced measures to make the district’s finances easier for residents of the three Chariho towns to understand.

“He was very conscious of the need for us to continue to find ways to become more and more transparent as we make sure our communities understand the budget,” she said. “I think Ned definitely took a position that was well-established and continued to enhance and improve our work.”

Draper acknowledged that the defeat of the bond for the construction of new schools had been disappointing.

“A lot of work from our team went into that,” he said. “I think, from a value standpoint, because of the state investments, I think there’s some opportunity costs there, but that’s community preference and that’s okay, too.”

The Search for a Finance Director

School Committee Chair Catherine Giusti said Draper would be difficult to replace.

“While I’m happy for Ned, his leaving is a huge loss for Chariho and our community,” she said. “Ned has the ability to interact positively with everyone he encounters. He answers any questions, no matter the spirit in which they were asked, both factually and graciously. He is going to be missed both for his knowledge and personality. “

The search for Draper’s replacement has begun, but at the time of this writing, no interviews had been conducted yet.

Banner image is an aerial view of the Chariho campus.