BreakDown: Danville School Board (4/16/15) – Part #2

We’ve published Part #1 of the BreakDown on Thursday’s Danville School Board meeting. Let’s keep it rolling…

When we left off, we were getting to the final draft for the budget and the vote to approve it. Let’s take a look at the summary page.

• We’ll start by analyzing the mandates. They’re not really mandates. Health insurance is going up 3%, but that cost increase will be killed by a cost decrease down at the bottom. The school system is raising the maximum amount that they pay for their part of catastrophic claims from $100K to $110K. That won’t affect any employee benefits. The next line under mandates is the problem. $650,000 of “carryover money”. That’s money leftover from previous budget years and once it’s spent, it’s not coming back. More to come on that later.
• Under “New Initiatives”, my eyebrows raise at $66K+ for a new athletics coordinator position (Withers Jackson, Hello?) and I can live with a new middle school baseball program for only $11K+. Understand, the dollar values quoted are salary, benefits and insurance contribution… not just salary. The amount quoted for an LPN at Johnson Elementary sounds way too low, and I’ve asked Finance Director Lori Cassada to check that. The conversion of middle school receptionists is a common sense move.
• Under the Savings/Cost Avoidance section, I’m concerned about the dropping of an orchestra teaching position at the middle school level. However, I asked an expert on that subject and they said one orchestra teacher should be able to handle both Bonner and Westwood’s program.
• Magically, the savings just happen to add up exactly to the “mandates” and the new initiatives. Right down to the dollar. Magic!
• It’s time for the vote to approve the budget and send it to city council, but Steven Gould has something to say! He says that he’ll be voting “No” on the budget because the use of carryover money means that the system is spending more money than they have coming in. He says that can’t be sustained in future budget years. He’s right. He gets nods of approval from other board members. Nobody says anything else and it’s time to vote. Gould votes “No” as he said he would, and Renee Hughes is next to vote. She thinks, and the pause is like Regis asking “Is that your final answer?”. She locks in a “No” vote and that three note music cue plays. Not really, but it’s about as dramatic. Sharon Dones also votes “No”, but Ed Polhamus, Terri Hall, Philip Campbell and Cheryl Bryant vote “Yes”. The budget squeaks by on the minimum 4-3 vote. Whew.
• Afterwards, I ask Renee Hughes and Sharon Dones if Steven Gould’s speech influenced their vote. Hughes said she already had some concerns about the sustainability factor and Dones said that she was already going to vote “No”.
• Next, Jackie Rochford goes over this year’s application for the Carl Perkins grant. The board passes that 7-0.

By the time we got up to take a photo, Jackie Rochford had already finished her presentation.

• Next, city council candidate (wait, not announced yet?) Warrick Scott is asking for a letter of support for the Wendell Scott Foundation’s grant application to the Womack Foundation for funding for their Legacy Leaders program. Confused yet? Here’s the proposed letter for you to read…

Warrick Scott speaks. Dolores Reynolds’ foot, HELLO!

• Sharon Dones asks if letters of support like these are standard policy, and Kathy Osborne says that they are. It’s a good program for upcoming 8th and 9th graders. The letter of support passes by a 6-1 vote. After the meeting, Sharon Dones said she didn’t feel comfortable endorsing a project that she didn’t have all of the information on. That’s understandable. With all these “No” votes tonight, Sharon is becoming the school board’s Buddy Rawley. Heh.
• Next, Incoming Superintendent Stan Jones has asked the board to pay for the Virginia Association of School Superintendent’s conference in Roanoke during the first week of May. Chairman Ed Polhamus doesn’t have much information, but it stands to reason that King & Queen County wouldn’t be wiling to pay for the conference she’s taking the Danville job. Board attorney member Steven Gould originally says that he’d be in favor of paying the registration fees, but then the discussion turns to “You know, he’s not an official employee yet.” The board quickly goes to a “Um… no.” position. Ed Polhamus asks if the board wants to make a motion and you can hear the crickets chirping. No motion. NEXT!
• The work session originally scheduled for 6PM on May 21st is moved to 8 AM. If you think you’re going to get SouthsideCentral coverage of that, FORGET IT! (but you just might anyway)
• Next, the board changes their capital improvement plan to go to new shingle roofs for the Westwood and Schoolfield if city council keeps the board’s capital improvement plan funded at the same level so that money can be used for other projects. They’ll talk about that at Tuesday night’s council meeting.
• Finally, the board considers a scholarship offer from Norhurst. Yes, that Norhurst. Norhurst wants to fund two $1500 scholarships, one for athletics and one for academics. Immediately, Steven Gould’s face goes “No. No. No.” He reads SouthsideCentral. Cheryl Bryant says “What does Norhurst do?” Apparently, she doesn’t read SouthsideCentral very often. Gould asks Kathy Osborne if the city has issued an opinion on accepting the scholarships and she says “Yes, they said to take them.” Gould’s mouth hits the desk. No. No. No. discussion ensues, and the timing is very late on Norhurst’s offer anyway. No motion is put on the table to accept the scholarship offer. Sanity prevails.
• It’s time for a recess then the board will go into closed session for personnel and discipline cases.  You know what that means?

We’re done! This has been the most interesting school board meeting since they fired Ed Newsome resigned. We’ve got more coming up on SouthsideCentral!