Macon County School employees will be seeing a post-holiday supplemental payout after a discussion and approval by the Macon County Board of Education at Monday’s meeting.
MCS will use $756,516 in state supplemental funds to pay each MCS employee $1,472 in January. This includes covering paycheck deductions.
A lengthy discussion during the Dec. 5 meeting at Nantahala School centered around how to pay out the received finds. One option was that MCS would cover an additional roughly $166,000 to pay everyone the maximum amount allowed under the supplemental program of around $1,800, or to pay 306 individuals the full allotments.
The board came to the consensus that MCS probably should hold onto their fund balance going forward and wanted to cover all employees equally.
The payments will go out in January.
Breedlove warns about tough budget times ahead
A finance update delved into a warning from Board Chair Jim Breedlove about how rising salary mandates and retirements will lead to tough decisions for the board in the next two years.
According to Finance Officer Angie Cook, the state earlier mandated that public school employees receive a minimum pay of $13 an hour and that is now going up to $15 an hour.
“That’s a huge impact on our budget,” Baldwin said. “Due to the state salary increases, we don’t have the revenues to cover it.”
That plus the planned Highlands School renovations and other budget amendments is requiring a $500,000 reallocation from the fund balance for fiscal year 2022-23, Breedlove confirmed.
Baldwin said that ESSER Fund money, which has helped cover state-mandated elementary and secondary school salary increases, runs out in December 2024. ESSER funding accounts for $1.25 million of current salaries in MCS, Cook told the board.
Breedlove said certain unfilled positions may not be filled and other budget-tightening measures could possibly be implemented.
“It’s time to start looking at those very hard, because we’re going to have to attrit. In my estimation, there’s going to have to be some attrition done when its 2024; we no longer have stop-gap ESSER funding,” Breedlove told the board. “We can’t continue to appropriate monies from our fund balance.”
Breedlove continued, saying that MCS is “about to enter into a very tough time” and that fellow board members will need to take a hard look at positions.
Earlier in the discussion, Hilary Wilkes said she wants a list of all non-recurring funds available at February’s retreat.
New school security position
Following a closed session Monday night, the school board approved a contract for Robert Holland to serve as coordinator of school safety. Holland retired the end of November from a 31-year career in law enforcement and served 20 years as sheriff of Macon County.
According to a job description obtained from the Central Office, the job duties will include coordinating a comprehensive security/school safety program and serving as a liaison with local enforcement to monitor the daily operations of the School Resource Officer and other law enforcement issues on school campuses. The coordinator will periodically assess the safety and security issues at each campus, assist in developing a Crisis Response Plan, and security plans for special events at school facilities.
In this new role, Holland will advise and assist site administrators regarding criminal activities on campus and work with local law enforcement when incidents happen on campus. This is a full -time position within the school system and the coordinator will report to the superintendent or his designee.
The Franklin Press requested a copy of the contract but did not receive it prior to press time on Tuesday afternoon.
Plans for a “faulty model”
Acknowledging the work done this school year, the board unanimously approved comprehensive school improvement plans for three schools previously identified as “low performing.”
The three schools, Iotla Valley Elementary School, Macon Virtual Academy and Mountain View Intermediate School, were lauded by MCS Curriculum Director Josh Lynch for their “great faculty and staff that have taken ownership” after being placed on the N.C. Department of Instruction’s Low Performing Schools list.
“Low-performing schools are those that receive a school performance grade of D or F and a school growth score of ‘met expected growth’ or ‘not met expected growth,’” according to the NCDPI.
According to the list, Iotla Valley and Mountain View received a D while Macon Virtual Academy received an F. As far as EVAAS (Education Value-Added Assessment System) growth, Iotla Valley met the standard while Mountain View and Macon Virtual did not.
There are more than 860 schools from across the state on the low-performing schools list from the state’s 115 school districts.
Superintendent Chris Baldwin noted to the board that everyone involved in the process, including the NCDPI itself, considers the Low Performing School list “a faulty model” and that the state is in the process of revising it.
“We know that model is changing,” Baldwin said. “Hopefully [our schools] will be aligned with the model and be in good standing next year when the new model takes effect.”
Lynch said a site visit with NCDPI will occur after the Christmas break. The plan is a living plan with “built-in checks and balances” and monthly meetings.
The next regular Board of Education meeting will be at 6 p.m. Monday, Jan. 23 at the Central Office.