Nevada County Picayune and Gurdon Times Newspaper Archive

Board approves budget for 2003-04; dressing rooms almost ready

Gurdon School District Superintendent Bobby Smithson gave an update on the new middle school dressing rooms at Tuesday, March 18 meeting of the Gurdon school board.

Smithson said, "As of Wednesday, Terry Hughes has put up all exterior walls of both dressing rooms. He is waiting for the roof panel clips to be sent from the manufacturer. If the clips come in, he will be finished with his phase of the project sometime this week."

Other phases to be completed on the building are the electrical, heating and air, ceilings and the interior walls.

Smithson said he hoped the facility would be finished by the first week of April.

The board approved to advertise for the bids to sell the following surplus items, a Ford tractor with front end bucket (diesel), Yanmar tractor (diesel), bus body, Tommy lift for 1 = -2 ton flat bed truck, and a 500 gallon fuel above ground storage tank.

The board also decided to start working on the proposed budget for 2003-2004 school year.

Smithson told the board, "We usually don't plan next year's budget until later on in the school year. Due to the bleak out look on revenues, we are going to address this issue in advance, in order to determine next year's budget."

Smithson also gave a legislative update. "Dr. Noggle and 15 other people have been invited to a conference by Governor Mike Huckabee," he said. "This conference is scheduled for Friday, March 14, 2003.

"The word is out that the governor may be ready to compromise on his school re-organizational plan. We should know the results by Wednesday of next week.

"The governor's bill, SB758 has been introduced in the Senate Education Committee by Senator Argu. It may get out of committee and may even pass the Senate. I don't think it has a chance to pass the Senate. I don't think it has a chance to pass the House in its present form.

"Senate Miller's Bill, SB317 and representative Weaver's Bill, HB 1507 are being supported by school people. These bills leaves the current standards in place until the adequacy study has been completed. September 1, 2003 is the deadline. If new standards are determined by the State Board of Education or the General Assembly, districts will have until January 1, 2006 to comply with the new standards or face consolidation.

"The Teachers' Retirement Fund has lost several million dollars, due to the state of the economy. School districts will have to increase the 12% matching rate to 13% for the next two years. An additional 1% will be assessed to the salaries of all personnel, who are enrolled in the T-Drop program. We will increase our 2003-2004 budget to reflect these increases.

"The last day for introducing new bills was last Monday, March 10. There were over 400 new bills introduced last week. They will be on a "fast track" until they recess in April. They will reconvene in September to address the school issues. This is the time frame we have reason to believe.

"All the issues relating to school issues (organizations, standards, financing, etc.) will not be known until late September, October, or later, depending on how long it will take to resolve all these issues."

During executive session the board approved to re-hire all principals, certified supporting staff, plus the assistant principal and nurse along with the migrant workers.

Superintendent Smithson's job will not be discussed until next month.