Katherine P. Craven
Executive Director, Massachusetts School Building Authority
Katherine P. Craven was appointed as the first Executive Director of the Massachusetts School Building Authority by State Treasurer Timothy P. Cahill in November 2004. In this role, Ms. Craven built a new independent state agency that aims to find the right-sized, most fiscally responsible and educationally appropriate solutions to create safe and sound learning environments across the Commonwealth.
In its six year history, the MSBA has made approximately $7 billion in reimbursements to cities, towns and regional school districts for school construction, renovation and repair projects. Under Ms. Craven’s stewardship the MSBA established a “Pro-Pay” system to reimburse districts for construction costs as they are incurred. These timely payments have saved municipalities over $2.9 billion in avoided local interest costs and have provided much needed cash flow to communities in difficult economic times. Ms. Craven oversaw the creation of the MSBA’s Model School Program which effectively adapts design elements from successful, recently constructed schools; simplifying the design process, reducing the amount of time projects are in the design phase and lowering design fees.
Prior to her work at the MSBA, Ms. Craven served as Director of Policy for the Massachusetts House of Representatives. In this capacity, she provided counsel to the Speaker and members of the House on major legislative initiatives, including billions of dollars of operating and capital budgets of the Commonwealth, economic development initiatives, municipal relief measures, health care financing, and legislation reforming school building assistance and special education. Ms. Craven has assisted in the drafting of 10 state budgets and hundreds of supplemental and capital appropriations bills appropriating billions of dollars through thousands of line items. Prior to assuming this role, she served as deputy budget director for the House Committee on Ways and Means, the legislative committee charged with analysis of over 5,000 pieces of legislation with a fiscal impact, including all budget and tax matters.
A graduate of Harvard College and Boston Latin School, Ms. Craven resides in Brookline with her husband, Dr. Jim Kryzanski, and four children, Delia, Joseph, James, and John.