School Board gets warning on capital outlay, hears good news on School Food Service | Eastern North Carolina Now

    The Beaufort County Board of Education met in its regular monthly meeting Monday (7-26-10). Among the items routinedly approved was the "consent agenda." The Board meets in committees to handle much of their business and then just approves everything in one vote, calling it the "consent agenda." At this meeting, after approving several items, they explained to the public what they had done.

    You will note in the video that the Board is advised that they have a problem with an air conditioning unit a Washington High School. They decided, in the Building and Grounds Committee, to try to 'patch' it rather than replace it. If the repair, which will cost nearly $8000, works they will not have to spend an estimated $140,000-$180,000 now.



    Readers should pay careful attention to Chairman Robert Belcher's "solution" if they do have to replace the chiller. He says they'll take it from the "contingency fund." That fund was set aside at the County's insistence to have some funds in reserve in case state of federal funding is cut. The County is concerned that there will be revenue shortfalls during the year a reserve is needed to avoid teacher layoffs if revenue does not come in as expected. Yet Mr. Belcher seems to be saying that there is no need to worry, "we'll spend it if we need to…on air conditioning." You can read and hear more about the capital outlay budget here.

    In another important financial area, the board heard a report from the new School Food Service Director, Gwyn Roberson McBride that the losses in SFS have been stemmed. Several years ago the SFS held over a million in fund balance. In the last few years that has been lost and as you will hear in the report in FY 09 SFS lost nearly $250,000. It had been in the red this year as you will see in the video, but within months of taking over the staff turned that around and have developed a plan for continuing it into the next year.



    Dr. Phipps credited Ms. McBride's leadership but stated that it was a "team effort" in which all of the SFS responded in what he suggested was a commendable manner.

    The board also approved the adoption of the new Sex Education materials to comply with the state-mandated Health Ed. curriculum. We'll have a separate report on that topic, so check back later.

    Delma Blinson writes the "Teacher's Desk" column for our friend in the local publishing business: The Beaufort Observer. His concentration is in the area of his expertise - the education of our youth. He is a former teacher, principal, superintendent and university professor.