May 5th Special meeting of School Board yielded budget updates and VSBA search
Botetourt County School Board held a special meeting on May 5th .virtually through Facebook Live.
It included handling budget amendments that will be voted on May 7. The calculation tool from the state arrived on April 30, so the budget was not quite ready for view but we did learn that from the disbanding of the Regional Partnership there will be needed special education services now provided by the school division to the tune of $310,000 of required positions. Along with those new positions also comes an assistant principal at the new Colonial Elementary School. Finance Director Brandon Lee said this amount of funded positions is by state guidelines and the division will ask the county to help fund them.
The state additional monies are feared reduced by about the same amount from 950, 000 to about 600,000. All of the uncertainty is due to the impact on state revenues by the Covid-19 pandemic. Lee and his team are due to have the budget amendments to the school board on Thursday night May 7 for the regular meeting.
Dr. Lisa Chen the former school superintendent presented a budget with 6 million dollars plus worth of additions over last year’s budget. The budget was adopted by the School Board in late March.
The Board of Supervisors will get the new budget with amendments and will vote to adopt the amended budget on May 12. By state law, the county must approve the school budget by May 15. The county budget committee also meets this week to try to figure out the tax rate on personal property as well as how state funding, county revenues etc are impacted by the Covid-19 pandemic.
More details and adoption of the amended budget should take place Thursday night.
The board also moved to have apprenticeships in the CIT part of the division studies on the secondary level where students can participate in hands on learning in the workplace. Dr. Massie, the interim Superintendent recommended the program after CIT Coordinator Mike Ketron presented it.
In other business, the YMCA After School Program and the YMCA Splash program were approved for the next school year.
The annual Special Education Report was presented by SPED Supervisor coordinator Julie Baker.
The qualifications for a new Superintendent were read. 375 people responded to the Survey Monkey. The Board incorporated much of the responses into the description which was sent on to the VSBA to begin the search for the new Superintendent.
The board went into special session to discuss probable legal matters as well as personnel issues. When the members came back from closed session they alluded to a person named in the closed session who will be allowed back on school property by vote. Vice chairman Anna Weddle made the motion. Administration will tell said person the results. The meeting adjourned.
–Cathy Benson