Farmington Schools Could Snag District 197 Finance and Human Resources Directors

The West St. Paul-Mendota Heights-Eagan School District could potentially lose both its finance director and human resources director to the Farmington Area School District before the start of the school year.

This comes just weeks after the school district's former superintendent, Jay Haugen, left for the Farmington superintendent position.

The Farmington Area Board of Education will meet at 6:30 p.m. Monday to consider contracts for Carl Colmark, and MaryAnn Thomas to the positions of finance director and human resources director, respectively.

Farmington is operating with interims in both departments.

Colmark confirmed Monday afternoon that he’s up for the finance position in Farmington, and he said he will be attending the meeting.

“They have a tremendous superintendent,” said Colmark referring to his former supervisor, Haugen. “I like to follow success.”

School Board Chair Robin Rainford declined to comment on the potential departures without having yet received letters of resignation.

District 197 appointed an interim superintendent, Tom Nelson, last week to manage the number of initiatives underway in the district.

“We’re already going to be in search mode for the superintendent come January, and the strategic redesign and the levy … there’s a lot of stuff going on,” said Mendota Elementary parent Dan Larsen upon hearing the news.  “We didn’t need this right now.”

Colmark said that if he is appointed to the Farmington administration, he would likely finish out the month in District 197. Thomas could not be immediately reached for comment.