Board member questions spending at Monday’s meeting
Board of Education, News August 10, 2020
Sparky Roberts questioned some purchase order spending and wanted the board to consider lowering the amount that the board receives copies to $5,000.
Concerns about how much the Murray County Board of Education knows about purchase order spending came up at Monday’s BOE meeting.
Board member Sparky Roberts voiced his concern that board members should see purchase orders starting at $5,000, rather than $10,000 as is the current policy.
“We see everything from $10,000 to $25,000 and we approve those over $25,000,” he said. He added that he was concerned that the current climate and having to furlough teachers should mean more oversight in the spending.
He cited an example of one purchase order where Murray County High School spent $7,600 for removing unwanted vegetation and placing river rock under all the downspouts.
He said the amount seemed high and the work could have been easily done by maintenance or the summer workers.
Superintendent Steve Loughridge said contracting the job out versus using school employees did come up, but in the end, it was decided the maintenance workers were needed more to move furniture into the schools for the upcoming school year. The school year starts September 8.
“We had three quotes and this one was the lesser. We have to move all the furniture into Gladden and that takes time,” said Loughridge.
But that wasn’t the only example Roberts questioned. “I’ve been told we are paying the cell phone bill of a retired employee.”
Loughridge said he approved paying for the cell phone for July and August, which comes to roughly $80.
“That employee knows a lot about the schools being worked on and we agreed to pay it so if we had questions, he would be available to answer them,” said Loughridge, adding it was not uncommon to pay retired employees a certain amount to help with transitions after their retirement date.
Roberts said he was concerned about how many small purchase orders contained expenses that could be better used.
Renda Baggett suggested either a committee or allowing Sparky Roberts access to the purchase orders, rather than sending them to all board members. The plan was rejected.
“We’re asking our most valuable employees, our teachers, to take a furlough, and that seems not right,” said Roberts. “How many of these are there?”
“There are always second guesses on the decision,” said Loughridge. “Could we have done it cheaper? We could have not done it all. But you do have to have your schools presentable.”
Loughridge said he stood by the decision to approve those purchase orders. Amounts under $25,000 have to be signed by both the superintendent and the finance director. Loughridge has been playing both roles for several months.
Roberts said he wasn’t asking to change the policy, only allow the board to see purchase orders starting at $5,000 instead of $10,000.
At first Renda Baggett and Kelli Reed indicated that it might be a good idea, as long as it didn’t hold up work for the schools. It would create delays, Loughridge said, because with open purchase orders, they have to wait for it to be approved.
Baggett asked if they could form a committee to review it instead, but the idea was dismissed by Loughridge who said the previous board had tried that, only to dismantle the committees after disagreeing with them.
Superintendent Steve Loughridge said he stands by the questionable purchase orders, including allowing a retired employee use of a cell phone to help in the transition.
“Every purchase order made isn’t ridiculous, but I think a lot of them are,” Roberts said.
“What do you believe is ridiculous when we came in under budget last year?” Loughridge asked.
“If you think that is a reasonable expense on that work, we’ll have to disagree,” Roberts said. “Our summer workers could have done it. We don’t even see the purchase orders that are under $10,000, so we don’t know how many others are out there.”
Loughridge said it was always possible to find some purchase orders that could be done cheaper in a budget of $62 million.
“If you went through a thousand (purchase orders) you’ll find something, but I stand by these purchases,” said Louhridge.
“If we go through a hundred and find thirty, I’d be concerned,” Roberts said.
“If you are pissed about this purchase order, I’ll take the blame for it, but if we’re doing a $62 million budget, is everything exactly as it should be? Probably not. Are there areas we can save money? Probably. Are there areas we could spend more? Probably,” said Loughridge. “But I think we’ve been proficient in using the taxpayers’ money.”
In the end, the board decided not to lower the amount.
In other BOE news:
- The board voted to approved amending the fiscal year 2021 budget by $217,345, bringing the total to $62,747,974. The change came from decreasing the furlough days for paraprofessionals from 10 to four, in line with the teachers, another $50,000 was added for additional custodial supplies related to COVID 19, and increasing the budget for virtual learning. Read previous story here.
- Approved the capital outlay application for Northwest Elementary School in order to cover the renovations not covered by the insurance claim, including the HVAC system.
- Approved the Leonard Brothers contract for the remaining amount of insurance proceeds.
- Loughridge said students at Northwest Elementary, which was heavily damaged in April’s tornadoes and Gladden Middle School, which underwent extensive renovations, will be ready in time for the Sept. 8 start date, although some trailers may be used while work is wrapping up.
Murray BOE to spend $2 million on technology for students
Board of Education May 12, 2020
Photo by Sharon McCutcheon on Unsplash The Murray County BOE voted to spend nearly $2 million on supplying technology to students at Monday’s Board of Education meeting.
The Murray County School Board voted to spend nearly $2 million on technology for students including Chromebooks, wireless switches and bus “hot spots” to ensure all students had access to technology and internet.
The cost of the Chromebooks for students and teachers, Chromebooks with touchscreen for kindergarten, licenses and insurance, power strips, ear buds, adapters, and thumb drives came to $1.45 million.
Parents will be have to purchase the ear buds and flash drives at a cost of about $15. They will keep both.
“Purchasing the ear buds and thumb drives ensure we have what works with the Chromebooks,” said Steve Loughridge, Superintendent for Murray County Schools. “If parents want to buy other earphones, they can.”
This will allow all the students in the district to have a Chromebook with some in reserve for the next wave of students to start school. Bus hot spots, to allow students with no access to the internet to have it costs $28,127.40 and wireless switches will run $54,780.
The money for the wireless switches will be reimbursed next year through E-rate funds which is a program to help schools have internet access.
Gladden remodel update and changes
While the main scope of renovations at Gladden Middle School will remain intact, budget concerns prompted some items to be crossed off the list or moved to later dates after bids came back at a
Some of the original plans for Gladden Middle School had to be altered due to budget restraints, however, the main scope of the project remains intact.
higher than anticipated rate.
“Originally, when we first discussed this, we anticipated the bids to be a little bit higher when we added to the scope of the project,” said Loughridge.
The project was originally a new roof, but they decided to expand the kitchen, increase office sizes, remove the stage to create a multi-purpose room and replacing floors and the heating and air system. For a complete list, read our story here.
All the renovations were unveiled in February at the board’s meeting, held at Gladden.
However, the corona virus shutting schools down in March led to higher than expected prices.
“We looked for things we could do that wouldn’t effect the scope of the entire project,” said Loughridge.
On the cutting block are eliminated one air handler unit in the gym that was deemed unnecessary, changing the LBT flooring to VCT flooring, changing curtain wall glass to store front glass and eliminating new furniture. One eliminated item that will happen later is the control system for the heating and air systems.
“What we can do, is add that to the upcoming SPLOST referendum,” Loughridge said, adding that installing the system later won’t be anymore expensive than installing it now.
The next Special Local Options Sales Tax will be voted on in March 2021.
The total reductions come to $662,000, bringing the total down to $8.53 million.
Renovations have already started at the school, but even with schools closing in mid-March, the projects still a little behind, said Loughridge.
He said they will continue with the purchase of interactive televisions.
Photo by Damian Carr on Unsplash
Murray County schools made the decision to supply the rest of the bus fleet with new radios rather than waiting until the new budget year in July because of funds remaining in the budget after schools closed in mid-March.
Purchase of remaining bus radios
The system decided to purchase the remaining radios needed to equip all of the system’s 101 buses. The first half was purchased earlier this year, with the remainder to be purchased once the new budget went into effect in July.
But since the schools closed in March, the transportation budget no longer had to pay for the buses to run, allowing the system to purchase the radios which will be installed and problems worked out before the start of the next school year.
Murray County eyes starting school in August
Board of Education April 17, 2020Murray County Schools consider starting school in August, giving teachers 20 more days of instruction time. The county traditionally returns the Tuesday after Labor Day, which would be September 8, 2020.
Gladden Middle School is getting a comprehensive upgrade.
Since the board has already approved the original calendar, they will have to re-vote, which will happen in May.
Steve Loughridge, the Superintendent of Murray County Schools, said this would give teachers 20 extra days to make up for time lost due to the COVID-19 pandemic that shuttered schools on March 13.
“The concern we have is students being out of the building for six month,” Loughridge said.
He added that the schools would shorten their days by 30-minutes. The days were extended to allow the schools to stay out until after Labor Day.
However, it isn’t an easy decision, Loughridge said.
The recent destruction at Northwest Elementary School from a tornado combined with the extensive planned renovations of Gladden Middle School, which won’t be done by September, have already complicated the decision.
“The devil’s in the details,” Loughridge said. “It can’t just be make a decision, we have to look at the factors invovled. If Gladden and Northwest weren’t an issue, it would be easy to change.”
The board will make a decision at the May board meeting.
Kelli Reed said she wasn’t sure changing the dates was the best idea given the situation.
“This has been on my heart about Northwest since Monday. When I think of moving those babies to another school, I just don’t see the benefit in moving them for 20 days if Northwest is going to be ready in September.”
“It won’t be ready in September,” Loughridge said, adding that moving the students of Northwest to other schools was also not an option.
“It would be a logistical nightmare. We’re working on options, we just don’t know right now. It’s evolving daily.”
Northwest Elementary School suffered extensive damage after a tornado ripped through Murray County Easter Sunday.
Distance learning
The school system plans to keep going with on-line learning through the end of the year.
It’s been a learning process, said Barbie Kendrick, assistant superintendent of teaching and learning.
“We thought we’d be out for two weeks, so we sent home paper packets,” she said.
She provided the board with an outline of all the meetings held in response to the how the system responded to the virus.
“We discussed what would happen if went more than two weeks and what to do for students who didn’t have the technology to support on-line learning,” she said.
Kelli Reed, Murray County Board of Education
One issue that they have had to address was temporarily suspending the use of Google classroom in the county.
“I was hearing that teachers weren’t allowed to use Google classrooms,” said Sparky Roberts, a member of the board.
“We did ask the teachers to stop temporarily,” Kendrick said.
She explained that her staff was being told that parents with multiple children and only one computer were getting overwhelmed from the amount of time the children had to be in the Google classroom.
“If you have three children and one computer, it was really stacking up. So, we asked teachers to stop while we came up with a better schedule.”
Now, on-line students use a “Choice Board,” which has 20 assignments posted weekly over all the subjects. Students must complete 15. Teachers then use
Renda Baggett, Murray County Board of Education
Google classrooms once a week to touch base with the students. They also call, email, or text.
Renda Baggett questioned whether the work books the schools have for reading would be sent home to students during the shut down.
Kendrick said the current plan was to use the workbooks when school starts back to help students.
“We’ll revisit, but we think it’s a great resource because it has the standards laid out in them,” said Kendrick.
Did anyone think about checking out devices to the students, asked Sparky Roberts. He also asked if the teachers knew who had devices at home.
“We have, but not at all schools,” said Kendrick. “Right now, the teachers are asking when they call. But we may want to consider having it as part of the yearly paperwork.”
Roberts said the system had about 4,000 devices on hand at the schools.
Sparky Roberts, Murray County Board of Education
“Before Sunday, anyway,” he said.
Graduation
No definitive plans for graduation have been set, Loughridge said, but said he continued to discuss options with the high school principals.
“Ideally, everyone would graduate in July, but we don’t know if that’s possible,” he said.
One issue is that after late July, graduates generally go to college or have started working.
“We’ll do what we can,” he said.
The board also approved $3.4 million dollars to start the renovations to Gladden Middle School.
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UPDATED to include video; Gladden Middle renovations to start after Spring Break
Community, News March 5, 2020
The Murray County Board of Education spent their work session at Gladden Middle School to hear the proposed plans to modernize the school. Work is slated to begin after spring break and continue through summer.
“This grant is for modernization. It’s to bring this school up to par with a brand new building,” said Craig Buckley, president of James W. Buckley and Associates, the architectural firm in charge of bringing the school to code.
“The school was build in 1969,” he said. “It was under the 1969 code and you could get waivers since it was under code, but somethings just need to be done because it’s the right thing to do.”
One of those is installing a sprinkler system throughout the whole school.
“When your classrooms don’t have a secondary exit, you need to sprinkle the whole school,” he said.
One of the most recurring topics was the fact that the bathrooms were not handicap accessible. That will change, making the school accessible to wheelchairs. Restrooms will literally get a ground-to-ceiling rebuild. The old ones will be demolished, new plumbing installed, then rebuilt to fit code.
The restrooms at Gladden are not handicap accessible but a modernization grant and ESPLOST, totaling $8-million will allow the school to upgrade them.
“We’re going to make the stalls wider,” he said.
Exploratory rooms such as the agriculture room, and art room will be extended to meet code. Even though the restrooms will lose some toilets, the number will remain compliant with 2020 code.
Steve Loughridge, the superintendent, said they have a total of $8-million for the project, including $5-million from the state. The remaining $3-million is funded by the Educational Special Local Optional Sales Tax.
“That’s the most we’ve ever gotten from the state for one project,” he said.
Administrative area
The administration area will be expanded and include to waiting areas.
This area will be made larger, opening up the administrative assistants area so that they can see the visitors. There will also be two separate waiting areas one for parents, one for students.
Gymnasium
“You have bleachers that don’t work, a stage that is seldom used and showers and more showers,” said Buckley.
The plan is to take out the stage, one set of bleachers and most of the showers, using half of the space for a weight room and half for a multi-use area for cheer leading, dance, or indoor batting practice. The remaining area will be normal size locker rooms.
The GMS gym will get a serious make-over after spring break, including tearing out the stage and adding a multi-use room and an elevator.
“The current weight room is in the field house and only used by boys,” said Buckley.
The other set of bleachers will be replaced. An elevator will also be added.
Cafeteria
The common area will get new floors and ceiling, but the kitchen is getting a makeover.
The walls are coming down to open the serving lines to the kitchen. The back will be expanded to put in coolers and freezers and the floor will be replaced.
While the commons area will get new paint and ceilings, the school’s kitchen will have mass renovations done.
Technology room, etc.
The technology rooms will be ripped out and converted back to an agriculture room. Special education is getting a life skills lab with a washer, dryer, toilet, and shower. Those students currently go to Bagley because Gladden does not have a life skills lab.
Room 23, know as “the two-three” and used by teachers as a break room will get a make over to include bathrooms, a kitchenette and a better faculty resource area.
The entire HVAC system will be replaced, adding units that will purify the air.
“There was no way to bring the air conditioner system to code,” Buckley said. “This new system will produce cleaner air.”
He said while it’s not something that would be noticed right away, the impact could be tremendous as other schools with the same technology report improvement in learning with cleaner air.
The school will also add new LED lights with dimmers, new plumbing, new roof, new paint and new floors in the places that do not have terrazzo flooring — a composite material with chips of marble, quartz, granite or glass poured with a cementing binder. Other projects include new windows.
Plumbing will be replaced as the cast iron pipes do not last more than 30-years, Buckley said.
“We’ve found pipes (at other schools) where they had corroded through and the water ran along the sand.
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Timeline
RA-LIN, the general contractor at risk for the projects will start work on the gymnasium after spring break and Buckley said the work should be completed by the start of the 2020-2021 school year.
To prepare, Loughridge said they will have a 40-foot roll back dumpster for teachers to begin clearing out their rooms and trailers for storage.
Concerns
Board member Kelli Reed asked about security measures when crews start working in April.
“Some construction workers can’t pass a background check,” she said.
Loughridge said the construction crews will only have access to the gym, which will be sealed off from rest of the school.
“It will be locked and the students won’t have access to it,” he said.
Another concern is there are no existing plans showing where the current plumbing runs, which could cause unexpected expenses.
The school is setting aside $800,000 as a contingency to cover such issues.
In other board news, the board:
Heard the third reading of the Wellness policy. This would update the board policies and bring them into compliance.
Heard the second reading of the new weapons policy. This change would drop the mandatory one-year suspension for students who have a knife at school. The move comes after the school board had to overturn two tribunal rulings.