According to Jewell Interim Superintendent Jerry Jones school board member Allen Foster took back his resignation this week and Cathy Rozinek changed hers to take effect June 30, rather than the day after the election.
The school board will now have a quorum to meet. A special meeting will be held at which the board is scheduled to accept the certified recall of two of its members on Monday, June 2nd. All decisions by the board of three members will have to be made unanimously. Because the two board members recalled, Meiers and Samuelson, were the chairperson and vice-chairperson, election of officers are to be held first according to Monday’s agenda. According to the agenda, the board will then acknowledge the receipt of the certified results of the recall election and announce the vacancy of positions 4 and 5 immediately and position 3 effective June 30th. The school board will then adopt a time line to fill the positions.
Another special board meeting is slated for June 9th, and a budget hearing and regular board meeting is scheduled for June 16th. All meetings are at 7:00 pm at the Jewell School.
According to the agenda packet for the May 2nd meeting board members have choices to make at the Monday meeting, in regards to filling the vacated positions. Board members may call now for applicants for all three positions, interview, and schedule a Board vote on the two positions that need to be filled immediately. They could then use the same pool of applicants to compete for the fifth position that will be vacated June 30. A simpler choice may be to take applications and interview for the two currently vacated positions, filling those and letting the “new” five member board decide the process to be used to fill the next vacancy.
Board member Alan Foster explained that for the first time since being elected last spring he made a decision that “put myself first without thinking about the educational achievement of the students.” Foster apologized for doing so. He said he acted hastily, in anger and disappointment with the people of the community [for the outcome of the recall]. Cathy Rozinek simply stated that her “goal for sitting on the Board has been to look out for the best interests of the School and its students.” She changed her resignation date to be effective June 30th because she realized that “important business decisions” still had to be made.
One of those decisions is the budget for 2008-09 school year. Carolyn Eady, a former Jewell School Board member, has been vocal with her concerns for the budget. Samuelson, at the time a board member, was just as vocal in challenging Eady’s concerns. “Carolyn launched post-employment benefits that the school district must honor. The liability amount is $341,000 starting next year.” Samuelson was not pleased with the fiscal results of that program, which a few have said caused friction between Eady and Samuelson. The fruit of the program materialize when many retired employees sided with Eady during the recall campaign.
Eady’s main concern is that Jewell’s 2008-09 budget projects a forty percent increase in expenditures over the current year. She says that this does not include contingency or the new school expenditures and that it is in addition to an expenditure level this year that is more than twenty percent higher than 2006-07.
Jones said that the post-employment benefits program created a liability that has never been tracked in the budget but that it is now, finally, being included. This could account for the twenty percent increase. Some are suggesting that Eady is attempting to get the community to look at other budget items so they won’t look at the costs of the program she was responsible for initiating. “We must pay those contracted amounts,” Samuelson said, before being recalled, “the school district is going to have to shell out hundreds of thousands of dollars in benefits to former employees that no other school district gives or should have to give.”
The post-employment benefits program will be an ongoing budgetary item; however, other items that are short term are paying off contracts that will finish the newly built school, repairs from the December storm, a new water system, and $120,000 in books that the district needs to be in compliance with state mandated curricula. “Many of the budgetary items are contractual obligations which were made by other boards,” stated Samuelson, “we are obligated to follow through on them. Other things in the budget are needed items: material for the curriculum [textbooks], repairs, and the water system for instance.”
Until the vacated positions are filled the three remaining directors on the board will have to vote unanimously for anything to pass. A majority quorum must approve a motion in order for it to carry according to school board policy. Whether adoption of the budget or appointment of new board members happens first may all depend on how well the remaining three board members are able to vote in unison.
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