Work session set Monday for school budget

 

 

The Halifax County School Board will meet Monday night in a work session to chop $2.3 million out of its proposed 2008-09 school budget. The need arises after Supervisors declined to appropriate the full amount asked for: $13.6 million rather than $15.9 million. The work session begins at 6:30 p.m. at the conference room at the Mary Bethune Office Complex in Halifax. Administrators have said that everything is on the table, including teachers’ jobs, new buses and some sports, because the budget is so pinched. Trustees whipped through a light budget in 42 minutes Monday night. In other business:

 

• Trustees heard from Assistant Superintendent for Instruction Joe Griles about the up coming six-year comprehensive plan for 2008-2014. On the committee to formulate the plan is Trustee Roger Long, who said

later he wanted an opportunity to better forecast school financing year to year and boost teacher salaries.

Plus, “I enjoy the idea of trying to look into a crystal ball,” he said. Also on the committee are central office administrators plus Barbara Tune, David Duffer, Albert Randolph and Gail Bosiger; teachers Linda Fears, Peggy Strom, Sue Pearce, Lori Hoyle, Linder Martin, Carolyn Coleman and Laura Parks; and parents Netrice Lipscomb, Sharon Harris, Tammy Wooding and Vivian Brooks.

 

• Trustees got a report from Finance Director Bill Covington, who indicated that enough budget areas were doing well to compensate for those in the red. “There’s no reason for alarm,” he said.

 

• Director of Maintenance Larry Roller made his monthly report. A Trustee asked about lights at the high school’s new tennis courts, and Roller replied that the school system pays for the electricity.

 

• The moment of silence that begins every meeting was dedicated to Tyler Hunt, a high school student who died in a traffic accident earlier this month, and to the daughter of school administrator Shawn Haws, who was badly injured in an auto crash over the weekend.