Just months after losing its top financial officer, Ohio University will wave goodbye to another top budget planner this summer.
Rebecca Vazquez-Skillings, OU's assistant vice president for Budget Planning and Analysis since 2007, will become Otterbein College's vice president for Business Affairs.
Her dedication
talent and commitment have all been excellent said Becky Watts, chief of staff to President Roderick McDavis. We wish her all the best.
Vazquez-Skillings is not the first OU administrator to leave Athens for Otterbein, a private liberal arts college in Westerville, Ohio, with about 3,100 students and 260 faculty. Last January, then-Executive Vice President and Provost Kathy Krendl announced she was leaving OU to become Otterbein's president.
Otterbein is excited to welcome Rebecca to our executive team Krendl said in a statement. She brings a superior level of budgeting from her previous positions and has a strong knowledge of higher education financial needs.
In March, David Mead, Otterbein's current vice president for business affairs, announced he would resign in July. Otterbein would not release Mead's current salary or details of Vazquez-Skillings' contract with the college.
Mead earned $166,000 in 2007 in addition to $20,339 in benefits, according to Otterbein's tax exemption form.
The announcement of Vazquez-Skillings' upcoming departure further rocks the leadership of OU's Office of Finance and Administration.
Senior Vice President for Finance and Administration Bill Decatur left in January for a similar position at the Rhode Island School of Design. A national search for Decatur's replacement was scrapped and restarted after two of three finalists withdrew their applications. Administrators say it is unlikely a replacement will be named by July 1, the beginning of the next fiscal year.
Skillings, who earned $111,815 this year, was the university's primary budget planner and advised the influential Budget Planning Council, an advisory group that makes budget recommendations to McDavis.
The good news is that Rebecca built a team of well-versed and well-prepared budget planners
Watts said. She was a very inclusive leader.
Vazquez-Skillings was at the center of planning the current university budget as well as the budget for next fiscal year - which included cuts of $10 million and $13.75 million, respectively.
She will present the final budget proposal to the Board of Trustees in June.
Prior to coming to OU, Vazquez-Skillings worked in Ohio's Office of Budget and Management; the governor's office; and in various positions in the Ohio Department of Human Services, Budget and
Control.
A Beachwood, Ohio, native, Vazquez-Skillings earned her bachelor's degree from Kenyon College in 1993 and her master's degree in public administration from Ohio State University in 1996.
Vazquez-Skillings could not be reached for comment.
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Wesley Lowery
