May 31, 2023 at 5:00 PM - Board of Education Meeting Special Called

Discussion:  (See above)

Discussion:   - Boston led the board members in a Moment of Silence and the Pledge of Allegiance. 

Discussion:  (See above) Boston advised, let the record reflect Safdie, Hamby, and Davis are not in attendance. 

Discussion:   (See Exhibit #1) Boston advised, next is the approval of the agenda. I'll entertain a motion to approve. Stout advised, motion to approve. Stull advised, second. Boston replied, okay so we have a first and second on the approval of the agenda. Any discussion? No one responded. 

Discussion:   - Boston advised, next on the agenda is our JROTC. I had this put separate, so the board could consider funding. It is not included in your budget sheet, but I thought it needed to be approved by the board prior to funding. So I'll turn the floor over to whoever would. Stout advised, motion to approve the JROTC program. King advised, second. Boston replied, okay so we have a first and a second. Any discussion? Nichols advised, I'd like to see it happen if we can afford to do it. Boston replied, I think it is a consensus. Mrs. Bray, $220,000 roughly. Bray replied, that is what I have been told. Nichols advised, that is a guess. Bray replied, that is a guess. Stout asked, and that's worst case scenario? I guess for a lack of putting it any better, right? That would be the most out of pocket. Bray replied, I'm gonna have to rely on my boss there to answer that one. Stepp replied, yeah it just depends on the ranks. Nichols replied, who applies for the job. Stepp replied, right. Boston asked, we're looking at two positions? Stepp replied, one for each school to start out with and then I think the standard for the Army on their side as far as personnel is, once we get to the 150 mark, then we look at two instructors. Boston asked, for each school? Stepp replied, yes, if they get that mark. Boston asked, so we've got one and one; SMHS, CCHS? Stepp replied, to start the program. Boston continued, to start with. Okay and the $220,000 that involves their? Bray and Boston replied, salary, benefits, everything. Stout replied, entire package. Bray replied, it is an estimate. Stout advised, but we're still waiting to hear back from the military. There might be some assistance with that. Boston asked, are we asking, if we ask for $220,000 is that enough? Stepp replied, well it's a guesstiment. We're guessing. It just really depends if we end up with two Colonels, then it probably won't be, but I don't see that happening. Hale asked, who do you think possibly, you know, would we wind up with? Stepp replied, so when working through the Brigade on this. They have a list of people that are interested. They're coming close to retirement or are already in retirement that would like to be instructors and then we start with that list. We obviously would post it once the money's approved and then we would reach out through them and they get all those requests sent to them for Michigan down to Tennessee. It's their area and if we score well enough on the Order of Merit list, they'll pay half of it. So I've already turned our applications in. Our request letters with all the justification for us to be on the OML. I just haven't received something back yet. Stull asked that would be for this coming year that they would go ahead and pay if we got that? Stepp replied, if we got that we would hope it starts then. If not we could work it through the NDCC program. We pay for it first year and then really work hard to get way up on that OML list. Boston asked, is there a test involved? Stepp replied, no it's just the demographics. It's where the high schools are. Where the community is. The community support. I had to put that in the justification, which I listed every organization I've went and talked to about this. The Military Officers Association, the rotaries, County Commission, Education Commission. Twice I've met with them You know, I listed all the supporters. You know VFW's supporting it, the MOAA actually provides financial support to seven or eight of those programs in Upper Cumberland. King advised, surrounding counties. Stepp continued, yeah all of the surrounding counties that have it. So I think it's like eight or nine programs. King replied, including Oakridge. Stepp continued, including Anderson County High School. Stout advised, and this rounds out our CTE program with adding this. Stepp replied, that is one pathway we don't have currently. Boston advised, well I'm going just to throw this out there. It's your motion, it has a second on it, but if we can include a number. So that we know what we're budgeting. Stout replied, a dollar amount? Boston replied, yes. Stout continued, okay so approval of the JROTC Program up to $220,000 for two instructors. $220,000 for salary for two instructors. Hale asked, would that be $120,000 a piece if we had two? Stout replied, it depends on their ranking. King replied, $110,000. Stout replied, so one might be more and one might be less. Nichols advised, you don't know who's going to apply, so that's the crap shoot. Stepp replied, I listed those numbers on this crazy color sheet #9. I listed some examples of the cost. So you can see if it was two Colonels then it probably wouldn't be enough, but the others rank are much lower pay. Boston replied, so we could go under. Stepp replied, it is very likely that we will be under. Stull advised, and potentially it could be even less than that if we're able to go ahead and get the approval on the list. Nichols replied, get the numbers up. Boston replied, and I think I've asked this before, but if I had pardon me. Does Phoenix get to participate? Stepp replied, we can figure out a way for them to participate, absolutely.  Stout replied, that was gonna be my question. How would that work if we had any students at Phoenix that wanted to? Stepp replied, well depending on. Hale advised, when they met. Stepp continued, yeah it just when they met. It could also be, they can just participate in the after-school programs of the rifle teams or they have some PT teams that they call Ranger Teams. Nichols advised, new drone stuff. Stepp continued, that compete against everybody. That kind of stuff, so they have a lot of extracurricular. That's why when you get to 150, I mean you need that second person, because you got summer camps. You got all kinds of things that they do in the summer too. Boston asked, could we make sure that it is at least offered to the Phoenix students? Stepp replied, yeah. We'll figure out a way to make that work. Boston replied,  because you may have somebody over there that definitely gravitates to the structure of that.  Stepp replied, that would just be an attachment probably to Cumberland County High School. Boston replied, since it's close. Stepp continued, since it's right there. Hale advised, yeah I'm thinking about when we had it before. We only had the one high school. Am I correct? King replied, we had it over at Stone too. We expanded. Hale replied, so we had it for longer than what I thought we had. Nichols replied, the timing is right. Boston replied, Stone opened in 2007. I have no idea. Okay, any further discussion. No one responded. A Roll Call Vote was taken. 

Discussion:   (See Exhibit #2) Boston advised, next time the agenda is the Budget Worksheet. I'm looking around the room and I think everyone that is present today has been present during the Budget Meetings. So if you have any questions, you normally do. How would you like, would you like from Mrs. Bray to continuously go through it? Do you have specific questions or how do you want to do this? Mr. Stepp, do you have any suggestions? Nichols asked, what do you want to do? Stepp replied, I think a motion to approve the budget and then that gets us to discussion. Unless you have anything specific that I need to point out. That we didn't point out before. Boston replied, well there's going to be, I think there's going to be a motion. We will just wait and see. Stout advised, maybe Mrs. Bray can start by just pointing out the changes since we had one last night and we voted for some things or the Budget Committee voted for some things last night. Just point those out. Bray replied, the only thing that changed that is different in this, is all certified will get a 8% raise. We added three new Special Education teachers. Boston advised, in addition to the four. Bray continued, right for a total of 7. We approved the new Classified Supervisor Scale. We removed the Middle School TMSAA. I never say that right. Boston replied, Kim that's still in the budget. Bray replied, no I've taken it off. I didn't take it out of the narrative, but it is taken out of the numbers. Boston advised, now look on page 9. It's still in there on page 9. Stout asked, what line Theresa? Boston replied, well I've got the;  now let me put it, it's in the narrative. Stepp replied, yeah the number is deleted. So we'll just edit that narrative and get the narrative part out, but the number on there is only represents the national competition. Boston asked, do you have the budget from yesterday? Because I went strictly by the narrative. Bray replied, that's my mistake. Boston replied, it's okay. Bray replied, yes ma'am it was $10,200 yesterday on that line. It's now 7,500. Boston asked, and it's 561 and you took that down to 546? Bray replied, correct? Boston replied, okay. So it's just in the narrative, thank you. Bray replied, I'll correct that. Bray continued, and I think that was the only changes that we had from last night. Boston advised, and the only change that we suspected today, was the JROTC. Bray replied, that I did nothing with that. Boston replied, okay you didn't. It's not in the budget. Bray replied, no ma'am. Boston continued, so it will be inserted and it will come out. Bray replied, correct. Boston asked, what page will that be on? Stout replied, CTE maybe. Bray replied, I don't know that it would be on the CTE. I think it would probably be on the regular teacher page. Stepp replied, correct. Hale and Stout asked, what page number? Stepp replied, 13 I believe. Bray replied, teachers, it's account 41100. Stepp replied,  okay I got the wrong page. Boston asked, so what page? Hale asked, what page? Bray replied, page 5. Just your regular teacher page. So we would just be adding two teaching positions and I will put it there. Benefits, taxes, insurance, very common. Stout replied, okay. Boston advised, so will just add $220,000 to that and that will decrease our Fund Balance by $220,000. If there are no more changes. Bray replied, right. Boston asked, is that correct? Bray replied, I'll try to make it work. Where it comes out to exactly, because I've got a formula that figures the taxes exactly. Boston replied, yeah, it's like figuring child support. Just plug in the numbers. Stouty asked, did we make it more difficult by giving a dollar amount? Bray replid, I'll work it out. Boston advsied, I think we have to have a dollar amount. So that we know what we are budgeting. Hale replied, I agree. Bray replied, I needed a ballpark. If I want to make it exact, it might be off a bit. Boston advised, if we all need to pitch in a dollar or so. Bray replied, the taxes and TCRS.  Hale advised, I don't know if this is the time to ask, but you know we approved the Special Ed teachers last night. I was just wondering, are they going to be in the classrooms? Holton replied, one will be at Brown Elementary, one will be at South, a halftime will be at Pine View and at halftime will be at North. For the three full-times. Hale asked, a halftime will be at North and where else? Holton replied, Pine View. Stepp advised, yeah they'll be in classrooms. Boston asked, what about the other four? Holton replied, the other four. Boston replied, we're not gonna hold you to this. Holton continued, there's a new CDC classroom at Stone Elementary. They changed the law on Speech
Writing IEPs that SLPAs could no longer do those. So we're going to have two positions that are traveling between four schools, running speech IEPs. Boston replied, that's an excellent idea. Holton continued, and so that's three of the four. Boston replied, okay that's it. I was just curious. Holton advised, but every position is at a school that we're at. Hale asked, so why do we have two half positions at North? Holton replied, currently he has two and a half teachers and this will make him have three full-time teachers. Mrs. Spicer at Pine View right now has a half-time teacher that will give her a full-time teacher. Boston replied, go you. I'm gonna make a motion that we approve the budget as presented at this time. Stull advised, second. Boston advised, we have a second. We're open for discussion. King advised, that's as presented and amended. Boston replied, as amended. King asked, with the JROTC? Boston replied, yes. Any discussion? Hale asked, now this is what we're going to work with all this year. Boston replied, yes. Hale asked, but we're going to also work on, the Budget Committee is going to work on some other things? Boston replied, yes, which we voted on last night. Hale replied, okay. Thank you ma'am. Stout asked, and we'll have the TMSAA that we'll be revisiting after the additional June meetings? Boston replied, it's an ever changing document, but we'll see where we end up with TMSAA and that's not a great deal of money. Stout replied, it's not a big expense. Boston replied, it's not. Stout continued, just need to keep it in the back of our mind, but that might be forthcoming. Boston asked, is there any more discussion? Is there anything else we need to know? Bray replied, not that I can think of. We've pretty well covered it all. It's basically about wages and positions. Boston advised, I'm comfortable.  Let's do a Roll Call Vote.

Boston replied, motion carries. We have a budget. This is the point where we go Yahoo. Did it seem a little painless this year then it was last year? King advised, a little shorter. Boston replied, maybe that's it. 

Discussion:   (See Exhibit #3) Boston advised, next on the agenda is the Proposed Salary Scales. These came out of the Budget Committee. I think everyone here was present during all of those conversations. I'll entertain a motion to approve. Stout advised, motion to approve Salary Scales. Nichols advised, I'll second it. Boston replied, okay so we have a first and second to approve the Proposed Salary Scale. Correct me if I'm wrong now. Hale asked, now this is all that we voted on last night. Boston replied, yes. Hale continued, the cafeteria employee pay scale and all this. Boston replied, yes. That will be under nutrition. We approved that separately. Hale replied, okay. Boston asked, any discussion? Any further discussion? No one responded. A Roll Call Vote was taken. 
 

Discussion:   (See Exhibit #4) Boston advised, okay next on the agenda is the 23-24 Federal Budget. Federal Programs, Federal IDEA and the Consolidated Funding Application. I would like to see whoever read the 243 pages to please raise your hands. Dr. Whittenbarger raised his hand. Whittenbarger replied, I wrote it, so I better have read it. Stout advised, our in-house expert. Boston advised,  I'll entertain a motion to approve Federal Programs. King advised, move to approve Federal Programs Budget. Boston asked, do you want to include the Consolidated Funding Application with that? King replied, yes. Boston replied, I'll second that. Any discussion? We have a motion to approve the Federal Programs, Federal IDEA, Consolidated
Funding Application. A Roll Call Vote was taken. 

Discussion:   (See Exhibit #5) Boston advised, okay now it's the cafeteria. Next on the agenda is your Proposed Pay Scale for the Nutrition Program and the Cafeteria Budget. I'll make a motion to approve. Hale advised, second. Boston replied, I have a second. Any discussion? Boston asked, Mrs. Hamby are you good. Hamby replied, unless you want me to just touch on a few things? Boston replied, I think we can honestly say we trust you. Any discussion? No one responded. A Roll Call Vote was taken. 

Discussion:   - Hale asked, when do we have to take this to the Commissioners? Boston replied, tomorrow afternoon at 4:30. So you'll amend? Bray replied, I will. Boston asked, will you email us out a copy of the final product? Bray replied, I can do that. Boston continued, and then we can have it and then it's tomorrow afternoon at the courthouse at 4:30. That's where we always present. Hale asked, at the big room? Boston replied, it's when you go up to the third floor. It's the meeting room on the left. The other one is the courtroom. 

Discussion:   - Boston asked if there were any questions from the media. No questions were asked.

Discussion:   - Boston advised, and if there is no further business I'll entertain a motion to adjourn. Hale advised, motion to adjourn. King advised, second. Boston replied, so we have a first and second. Meeting was adjourned at 5:23pm.