Jul 01 2008
The School Board voted yesterday to approve a final ‘08-’09 budget. We do not have the final details of the budget yet, but the salary scale has been increased. The experience step has been reinstated and the entire scale has been adjusted. Staff will see an average 2% salary increase. Final details will be posted soon. Letters noting amendments to contacts have been sent out.
Jun 26 2008
After multiple votes and negotiations, the Board of Supervisors has finally passed a budget. In the end, they did retreat from their position that the schools would receive no additional funding. The new final budget provides an additional $250,000 in funding for the schools. This is about one fourth of what the School Board initially requested.
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Dr. Tanner, school personnel, and the School Board have now begun the work of revising the budget. The main focuses for this new money will be salaries and transportation. The School Board will need to approve a final budget on Monday morning, since the fiscal year will end that day. Details regarding changes to the “level funding” budget will be posted here sometime Monday.
Jun 17 2008
The Madison County Board of Supervisors held two public hearings Monday night on their proposed budget and the tax rate for 2009. A full narrative of the night is available for download here.
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The comments regarding the schools last night mostly dealt with salaries and ranged from “if you can’t give the teachers a raise, don’t give raises to anyone else on the county payroll” to “teachers are all overpaid and most of them don’t even live here.” Overall, however, the crowd seemed intent on letting the BOS know that at least some of Madison County’s citizens see some hypocrisy in or have a problem with the currently proposed budget. Numerous citizens chastised the BOS for their expenditures and uneven distribution of funds, while pointing out that the BOS has told the schools and sheriff’s office to “toe the line” and “tighten their belts,” but the BOS themselves does not seem to be doing the same or holding ALL of their departments and employees to that same standard.
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The only BOS member to offer much commentary was James Arrington, who stated after the first portion of the public hearing (on the budget itself) that he will not be supporting either the proposed budget or the real estate tax rate that it employed (45 cents/$100). He made it clear that he feels the BOS has not put in “the time and work” needed to make the budget fair. He also noted the “hypocrisy” in the proposed numbers, stating that he feels it’s wrong to ask some departments to deal with level or very low increases in funding while others are receiving large raises. His comments were well-received and applauded by the crowd, but none of the other BOS members indicated their agreement or expressed similar sentiments.
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The BOS will reconvene on June 26th at 2PM at the Thrift Rd. office to vote on the budget and tax rate. That meeting is open to the public, but no public comments will be heard.
Jun 16 2008
If you are interested in serving on any of the following VEA committees, please let a representative or officer know by June 28th.
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The committees are:
If you are interested in being nominated for one of these committees but are unsure of exactly what the focuses for these committees are, read this document.
Jun 15 2008
The NEA 2008-2010 Strategic Plan and Budget is available. Interested members may contact me to review a copy.
Jun 13 2008
One of the focuses of Monday’s School Board meeting was a report from the architecture firm that’s been handling the early stages of the plans for the high school and the middle school.
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Two options were presented to the Board about how the renovation could be handled. While the report is not public yet, many of the details of the plans have been posted to Crabtree, Rohrbaugh, and Assoc.’s web site.
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The Board decided to review the report and the two options, and will reconsider these details at the next meeting.
Jun 11 2008
To meet our goals for next year, we have scheduled a retreat on Tuesday, July 15th, in Waynesboro. All MCEA members are invited to attend. Although it is a bit of a drive, the location is excellent, and I expect we will have a relaxing and productive day. I believe we have been presented with a significant opportunity to come together and make our voices heard within the division and the community. MCEA can continue to expand its influence as more of us work together, and we now have many challenges that should encourage us to do so. Here is a flyer describing the event.
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Please consider attending so that you can have a say in our agenda for the coming year, and so that we can better work together.
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If you can’t attend, but would like us to consider a particular issue, please let me know that as well. I expect many good things from our organization in the months ahead.
Jun 09 2008
At their regular meeting tonight, the School Board unanimously approved the so-called “level funding” budget requested by the Board of Supervisors at the last meeting. This budget should be available soon, but the key points are cuts in facilities expenses, summer school, and personnel. In addition to the roughly $210,000 in state and federal revenue, there is also budgeted an additional $70,000 in fuel and $90,000 in electricity costs. They passed the budget “with regret,” hoping there will be additional funds.
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The Eagle reported last week that there would be an additional $195,000 from the Board of Supervisors. The School Board received clarification on that amount this evening. If the Board of Supervisors does raise the tax rate to $0.45, $0.01 of that will go to the school system. Dr. Tanner stated tonight that she hoped this could be used to reinstate the salary step, and a 1% raise for those employees not on the salary step schedule. Regardless, this won’t be determined until the Supervisors approve the final budget on June 26, which will only give the School Board four days to revise the budget.
May 29 2008
Marc Lebendig (MCHS) has been elected President for the 2008-2010 term.
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Colleen Eanes (MCHS) has been appointed Vice-President for the remainder of the current term (through 2009).
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Karen McLean (WWMS) has resigned from the Secretary position, leaving it vacant, but has been appointed Building Representative for WWMS.
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Barbara Fehn (MCHS) will continue serving as Treasurer. Cheryl Paramore (MCHS), Abbie Jewett (WYES), and Teresa Aylor (MPS) will continue serving as Building Representatives.
May 23 2008
Below are my overall thoughts and impressions. For a complete description of the meeting, click Joint Meeting Summary.
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The School Board (SB) and the County’s Board of Supervisors (BOS) met Tuesday night at 7PM in Wetsel’s library. One BOS member (Clark Powers) was missing, and Lisa Kelly, Brenda Tanner, Tina Cropp, and Liz Patterson were seated with the boards as well.
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The board discussed the budget timeline and the BOS predicts that, until the next reassesment, the timeline will end with budget adoption in May. This year’s delays were attributed to the reassessment and a new requirement for publishing meetings 30 days before they are held. In regard to this year’s delay, the BOS questioned whether or not the lateness of the County’s budget was holding up school contracts and suggested inclusion of a “pending the passing of the budget” clause. The SB explained that while they already include that clause in contracts, they don’t want to issue contracts without a reasonable certainty of salaries. It was clear that the BOS resents being blamed for “holding up contracts.” I got the feeling that the school board may have been waiting in the hope that the dollar amount from the county might change, but now they will move forward with contracts that include no increases in salary.
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The boards then discussed tax rates and possible increases in county revenue, as well as the transferring of the debt service on the HS/MS remodeling. Basically, the county moved that loan payment to the school’s budget so that it fell under the correct line item in their own. They made no apologies for not clarifying the confusion it caused when we all thought the school’s dollar amount was going up. The BOS then blamed a lack of necessary information from SB for the flatlining of the school’s budget. Apparently, the BOS feels that they have repeatedly requested information from the SB and not received it. The SB’s position is that they never knew the information that they were sending was inadequate, because they were never informed. It seemed to me that the BOS was upset about the format of some salary information and using that as a basis for denying any/all requests of the SB.
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