The Patrick County School Board and the Patrick County Board of Supervisors will hold a joint meeting on Monday, May 23 at 6 p.m. in the Patrick County Administration Building.
School officials issued a formal request for the joint meeting at its May 12th meeting, after Schools Superintendent Jason Wood said he has waited for more than a month for the Board of Supervisors and County Administrator Geri Hazelwood to respond to his request.
“We prepared this in April, and we have been requesting a joint meeting with the Board of Supervisors, and we are still waiting to hear back” from them “to make a recommendation or a motion or something to meet with us, because we need to have some answers. We have worked in our office to have a proposal that we think will benefit both the schools and the county,” he said.
Wood said he again planned to contact Hazelwood to request the joint meeting.
Wood said the meeting is needed because the division’s departments looked at ways to help the county while not losing any of its match funding from the state for optional programs.
In the current fiscal year, Wood said the school division still needs approximately $500,000 to meet the required local match.
“We’ve been participating in those programs all year, and the calculation tool we still need additional appropriation so that we spend the right amount of money to certify our participation in those programs,” he said.
If the school division does not receive the necessary funds, Wood has said the county will receive a bill and have to pay the amount to Richmond. The deadline to receive the funds is June 30.
Wood said the division’s solution is to use a portion of those funds to ensure that the required local match is met and certified.
“One qualifying expense that we could use is the payment for services rendered from School Resource Officers (SROs),” he said.
While he notes that the county would probably have to pay out of its contingency funds for this fiscal year, Wood said the division would repay the county for SRO services rendered this school year “so, it would not deplete totally their contingency fund,” he said.
For example, if the county appropriates $500,000 to the school division, which needed $100,000 to ensure it could meet the required local match a qualifying expense, the division could give the county $400,000 for SROs.
The proposal also includes appropriating funds $100,000 above the required local match. Wood said the independent consultant the division used at the request of the supervisors and its attorney said it would be better for the division if the supervisors appropriated more than the required local match to allow for flexibility in spending.
“Any money above the required local match that we could save as a school division could be carried over for the next year for capital expenses, like buses. So, that would free up other expenses in our next year’s budget,” Wood said.
He added that plan also will eliminate the division’s need to request additional appropriations if there are changes to the calculation tool or enrollment changes.
“It will allow us to carry over $100,000 if we could save that throughout the year. Then our school system would commit $225,000 towards the payment of School Resource Officers every year,” he said.
Wood said this would also free up money within the county’s budget, and would give the county $125,000 “to the good” each year.
In Wood’s proposal, the school division also could take over some library services. “If we contract services to the book mobile, then whatever contract services we pay for the book mobile they could use that money to give their employees raises,” he said.
He noted the division could pay about $10,000 for book mobile services for students, which would allow help with the library budget.
Another potential of the proposal involves the school system taking over payment for the Rotary facility lease from the county.
“Our schools usually use the Rotary Building for athletic events. So, we could incur the cost of that lease and continue to help their budget that way,” he said.
With the proposed compromise, Wood said the school division is committing more than $150,000 of expenses currently paid by the county. “I think that’s a good compromise moving forward. We ensure that we get the required local match spending every year, and we could commit this spending back to them for services that we use,” he said.
Wood noted that if the proposal is accepted, the county could save more than $1.5 million over 10 years. If the school division is only funded the required local effort/required local match, it will be unable to take over payment for services from the county.
Rob Martin, of the Dan River District, said it appears Wood’s solution is a win for a lot of departments in the county, not just the students and the school system’s employees. He also asked Wood to request the joint meeting again with Hazelwood.
“Hopefully this time, it won’t take us as many months to hear back and get a joint meeting with both boards. Maybe they can make the steps of making a motion to show the county that” they’re willing to work with us on this issue. “It doesn’t seem from where I’m sitting that some of the board is wishing to do that, and I hope I’m wrong and I hope that changes,” he said.
Wood said the independent consultant also worked on the required local effort/required local match issue between the division and the Board of Supervisors.
“Her report was that school divisions are responsible for requesting at the minimum required local effort and required local match. That’s what we did, that was our minimum that we asked,” he said.
Wood said the consultant’s report also noted the annual request to the governing body should start with local funding at the required local effort/required local match level.
“I think it just certifies that we are doing what we’re supposed to. Our request is what we feel we need as a school division and it’s also supported by an independent consultant that the Board of Supervisors asked us to use,” he said.
In other matters, the board:
*Approved Haney & Phinyowattanachip, PLLC to be the division’s legal team with a 3-2 vote. Amy Walker, of the Mayo River District, and Walter Scott, of the Smith River District, voted no.
*Heard from Wood about Standards of Learning (SOL) scores and Certification pass rates.
*Approved the certificated staff and support staff recommendations from the superintendent and assistant superintendent.
*Authorized Assistant Superintendent Shannon Brown to sign documents in the Superintendents’ absence.
*Discussed the purchase of the building at 132 Main Street in Stuart.
*Approved the consent agenda as amended.
*Approved making Friday, May 27 a holiday for teachers for their hard work over the last school year.
*Approved the selling of surplus technology.
*Approved the scarping of unusable surplus vehicles.
*Approved the adoption of K-5 English textbooks.
