good afternoon everyone
i'd like to welcome you to the russell
county board of supervisors reconvene
meeting at 5 p.m in the russell county
government center i'd like to first
start off with uh call of order and roll
call
tim lovelace here luanne wallace
here david eden here steve brady
here where's christian president
carl ray here and rebecca die here
ma'am you have a quorum
and rain standing for the pledge please
thank you dear lord for giving us
another day thank you for all the
blessings that you bestowed upon each
and every one of us and their families
help us to understand your wisdom you
know and see all things
your understanding is beyond our measure
and our knowledge
but teach us lord that we may walk in
your way in your wisdom
to help us make decisions that are right
and true
and what you desire of us help direct
their thoughts that we may make
things that are correct for our family
our friends
and the people of this county in jesus
name we pray
amen
pledges allegiance to the flag of the
united states of america
and to the republic for which it stands
one nation under god indivisible
with liberty
at this time i'd like a motion to amend
the
agenda please to add our presentation
from dr brown from the school board
ma'am chair i'll make that motion to be
inserted in front of
i guess uh public hearings
yeah i'll second it see
right all those in favor
anyone opposed all right we will amend
the agenda and add dr
brown as a presentation before our uh
public hearing so at this time
dr brown if you don't care we'll have
you
before discuss the
school budget please thank you madam
chair i
was contacted by mr lester last week and
he shared that the board had
some questions concerning the school
budget and
the stimulus funds and such and i'd be
more than happy to
to answer those questions madam chair so
i would like if acceptable to
uh open to the board to ask those
questions of me so that i might answer i
prompt my material and again i don't
want to go through both these binders
nor i'm
i think you guys do not want me to go
through these two binders so
again if that's acceptable i'll open it
up to the board to ask questions of me
okay so i'm the one that caused all the
havoc doctor
okay that's all right so uh i guess
one thing uh in looking at the budget
you know it's you know the the total
funding from this year to last year
you know you you jumped from 40 some odd
million up to 57 million and i
understand
11.7 of that is from this
esser two and three
or whatever you know so
my question is and part of it i saw the
email that you sent you
and you answered part of my question
about what you intended to do with that
and under understanding that that money
is good until 2024
and i saw in your email you were talking
about putting air conditioning in all
the gymnasiums which is
great uh been should have been done
years ago
uh you're looking at a polarization
system of some sort
and there are some other things but what
what else do you have in mind
and what can those funds be used for i
guess
yes sir the funds are designed to be
used to
improve our pandemic response
so in other words these funds need to be
tied to some form of
air quality environmental quality
something along those lines that again
if we
were to god forbid have to deal with a
pandemic or
again an agent of the current virus
reoccurring we need and we are forced to
use these federal stimulus dollars in
that fashion so yes the air conditioning
for the gymnasiums that has been
provided to the department of education
and we have received approval
from richmond for that
again the issue there was humidity
control
again bacteria growth that type of thing
with the temperatures and the amount of
humidity that we deal with especially
during
the summer with those buildings so that
was
again approved in addition to that
both boards worked on five years ago six
years ago
some energy conservation programming
through train where
coal-fired boilers and so forth were
examined
and transitioned to natural gas and
propane
that program had to be trimmed
and there were three high schools and
honeaker elementary school that were
removed from that program
again that was submitted to and approved
by
richmond for us to use those funds
toward the completion of that program
in addition to that bipolar ionization
systems
uh were in process now being installed
in every building that we have in
russell county for russell county public
schools
matter of fact they were at the school
board office yesterday working their way
through
they've been to belfast the home acre
schools they're going through lebanon
now they're to high school
and then they'll wrap that up and go to
castlewood
again that was approved by
richmond as well in addition to that
the
major renovation to the
locker room public restroom facility
for lebanon high school's football
program here at lebanon middle school
that structure was built in the 50s and
renovated once and
the restroom facilities for the public
are inoperable
again the facilities when they're
originally built
were two locker rooms and as football
grew the wall was taken down if you will
between those two
and now that's simply one big locker
room facility
and again it's in need of repair it's uh
again inadequate
as far as plumbing and things of that
nature are concerned the number of
facilities within that structure so that
was
again another presentation to richmond
and it was approved
for a new structure that actually will
take care of three things
it will be the visitor locker room
facility and the home lock room facility
and the rekindling of the restroom
facility for
our visitors as well so we're actually
taking care of three items in one with
that it's also going to be brought up to
ada specs
so again we're excited about that
program or that project and that is to
hopefully be put out to bid within the
next
two to three weeks and then of course
the fifth project that is
not stimulus related but definitely of
note
is the work that we've done with board
of supervisors board of education
with the ag program i presented back in
december
that is moving along even though
materials have skyrocketed and
it's difficult to get those products in
even with the price being so much higher
but we are moving forward with that they
share with us that they are on time
schedule to finish that before the start
of the school year so we're excited
about that but to answer your question
in more detail
uh mr breeding these esser funds okay
you had sr1 sr2 sr3
also known as cares we had 1.1 million
that was given to us
uh this time last year april of last
year actually
uh those funds were again were
used to purchase chromebooks uh also for
hazard pay for employees and such
s are two funds that's 3.6 million
we're looking at the bipolar ionization
for that which is about six hundred
thousand dollars
and the boiler replacement that i shared
earlier 3.1 million and then
with the esther 3 funds we have not been
given access to all of those funds
at this point in time the project for
lebanon the field house at lebanon
middle school
and the air conditioning systems those
will come
out of esther 3 funds with esther 3
that's 8.1 million
those funds also have a required 20 set
aside for instructional loss
and mental health well-being social
emotional well-being over students
so that money has been set aside as well
for those requirements when it's all
said and done
we still will have approximately
three and a half million dollars left
and again with that being said that's
money that
we are gaining you know input
as far as additional projects evaluating
if those can or do or do not
meet the requirements from the federal
government
and then again we'll consider moving
forward with with those as well but
again as you shared
we have until september of 24 to
exhaust and incur the st excuse me sr-3
funds do you have to have each project
approved individually
by board of education uh the
the the more obvious projects we get
verbal confirmation
the boiler system was so obvious i mean
that's again
you know black and white that we need to
move forward with that we're either
going to have to replace them with coal
or replace them with a natural gas and
propane
and then the bipolar ionization again
was an obvious we got a verbal approval
on that
the field house we do have written
approval
and the air conditioning for the high
schools we do have written approval for
those as well
well dr brown i guess i'm next on the
list but i have a
concern i guess with some of the laws
that's been enacted and
brought to our way as you all know with
some of the policy reviews that
i think i think our legal teams and
stuff are working
with other counties and stuff to look at
this deeply
you know and i appreciate our attorneys
being able to do that
i guess my concern is long-term plan
on the budgetary side if some of these
things are enacted
and and apparently they're going to be
enacted by law
and there's a mass loss of the adm or
loss of children that
people parents decide they're going to
pull them out they're going to
homeschool when we're going to send them
to another educational
process that's a real concern
of mine because you know what's that
gonna look like
uh on the budgetary side for the next
budget session that we're gonna have to
be dealing with
i don't think anybody in this room wants
us to raise taxes or wants us to be able
to do that but i think there's going to
have to be a plan put in place to see
what that pandemic looks like because i
think it's going to be a financial
pandemic
if some of these things that's going
against the grain
with this area where we live
and that could happen i mean that
honestly could happen from what from
what i'm hearing from constituents in my
district
there's a lot of parents are wanting to
pull their kids out of public education
in regards to some of these issues
that's coming down the pike so
i guess from the from the financial
perspective of this
what's that what could it what could it
look like or
what could be the impact if we lost 100
kids
out of public education and i know
that's federal state and
local match funding but it could be a it
could be a very tragic
incident for us to be able to have to
deal with on the budgetary side
oh again i i totally agree
mr eaton whenever we lose students it
has
you know definitely a downward spiraling
effect when we leave students we lose
adm
that creates an environment where we're
not able to offer as much
we have people that become
disenfranchised and
move elsewhere jobs the economic
development piece of it doesn't work
people do not come here with their
businesses and they move elsewhere
so again it's a downward spiral in the
same breath they can be an upward spiral
uh you know we've done a lot of great
things uh to attract businesses and so
forth
into the area and we've worked and we've
worked hand in hand i agree
yeah we've worked hand-in-hand with
board of you know the
excuse me board supervisors to to speak
when asked
about our programming and to listen and
build additional programs
uh that fit the needs of some of our
potential business partners so again
you're exactly right
it's it's it's a very um concerning
thing regardless if it's a a policy
driven
item or an economic driven item uh both
you know again both can have a tragic
impact well i do know and i do
appreciate all the working relationships
that we've had because we have put in a
lot of
great initiatives to attract and help
these kids with hands-on type
learning you know and we've seen the
results of that we've seen the fruits of
our labor and when we put those
initiatives in we
it grew yeah you know so i you know i'm
really grateful for that and
but my i guess my only concern is is you
know this
you know i think that there's going to
be a lot of communication and dialogue
between both boards and working together
to be able to see you know what this is
going to do and how it's going to impact
not only our citizens our community our
businesses
because i think it could have huge huge
impact
economic impact on us yes sir
yeah i think it's unfortunate this is
being forced upon us
and i know it's coming down from the
federal level down through the state
and it's just very very concerning
and and i'll wake up what david said we
we've had a great working relationship
from right from the get-go and we've
done a lot of different things we've
reinitiated the ag program and we've
initiated a race program and we've uh
just you know you you've been great as
far as economic development and
everything
goes you know and working with community
college and
in educational programs that are key to
the employees that we need
and the employ the companies that we
have and employees that they need
it's i don't fully understand exactly
about this
the transgender and the critical race
theory that
there is a decision that has to be made
by the school board before
the end before the next school term
begins
is that correct they have to draft a
policy of sorts
yes that's the directive from the
department of education and from the
legislators
and it has to be as least as stringent
as the state
at least on our level if we have
something that comes down to the state
it has
we can be more stringent but we can't be
less stringent
so you're in the same situation yeah we
have a
we have a minimum threshold that we have
to meet
i shared david's concerns because i've
had calls from a lot of people as well
that say you know i'm just it
you know it goes against my religion and
i don't believe this
and i'm not going to subject my child to
this
so you know i don't know if we're
talking about 100 or 200 or 500 of them
you don't know until august rolls around
quite frankly you know
but i feared a lot of people are going
to be looking for alternatives
you know so it would be good i don't
know how you plan for something like
this
quite frankly uh you just
plan for the worst hope for the best
maybe i don't know
all right dr brown um i've got a few
questions
and i just i guess just refresh my
memory on a lot of this stuff because
i've been retired several years now and
if anything's changed
remind me tell me that i'm not correct
on this but after looking at your
expenditures basically you've got your
instruction that's the largest amount of
money that is in your budget and um
is that all your salaries your aides
your assistance that that's what you're
putting
in there in that category with all is
going in there
yes ma'am chair and the instruction
account the majority of that is
personnel
teachers site level administrators aides
you know again everything with the
exception of our cooking staff
because that's another all right in the
event that we have a child that
you give yourself a little bit of
cushion in there
in the event that a child moves in and
they need extra
services you might have to hire an aide
in the middle of the year and
you're counting on that person coming in
is that
still the way you pretty well do it yes
yes ma'am the requirements are
when it comes to iep there is no
budgetary
maximum if you will per se so if we were
to have
five students move in in the process of
the year and those
five students happen to have an iep and
they have
you know several needs and so forth we
are by law required
regardless of cost to supply them with
those
uh you know with those needs and
assistance
and that might even include a bus aide
if they have seizures
you have to have someone with them okay
so that pretty much hasn't changed all
right
your administration attendance and
health service that's
pretty well self-explanatory um
and also your your nurses at all the
schools fall under that category too
yes man that's mainly your central
office administration your nurses
and those benefits associated with them
all right the transportation that's just
your diesel your gas
and i'm assuming you still do your
annual contracts
it's going to hold what it has been we
all know gas and diesel is going up
but that's pretty much all that entails
yes yes madam chair
bus purchases leases uh things of that
nature
uh in russell county we uh
in the process of a year we'll put 750
000 miles
on our school buses athletic buses
combined
if you look at the life of a bus if you
want to be generous and say 150 000
miles
we're wearing out five buses a year and
we try to
if funds are available to replenish
those some years we can some years we
can't this past year we were not able to
this year we were hoping that we can but
you know again those miles keep going
whether we put uh new buses
and on the road and replace those but
basically
again three-quarters of a million miles
uh a year
on our buses but yes you're you're right
our bus drivers maintenance and so forth
or mechanics excuse me are included in
that
the gas and diesel and again that's a
variable
the rate that we pay for that basically
is market value
and then they do provide us with all the
pumps and so forth so we
have 15 cents above market value for the
price of our gasoline and diesel
and that's about about 125
000 gallons a year total between those
two
then operation maintenance service
that's still just the daily operation of
their school buildings right
yes ma'am chair maintenance staff will
be
in this item in addition to that the
electric bill the water bill
etc again those daily things that are
required for the operation of the school
insurance insurance on the buildings and
all that
okay then of course my category
school food and i remember all that you
still
still do the annual contracts but i'm
assuming it's just like it used to be
if produce goes up then they've
just bend it on over to send it on over
desk we have to
take if they raise the cost of food
produce
particularly right yes madam chair we
have
you know a contract we we do have a
consortium now
with other school divisions to help to
help
with the pricing and so forth and we do
have a provider but yeah there is
fluctuation within those prices
they are required to give us the lowest
price available but again that price
again much like speaking of the cost of
lumber earlier
you know that that that does fluctuate
as well and again that is an enterprise
fund which means that that is separate
from operations
those funds are required to solely be
used
for the support of our
foods and nutrition program
most of those i know
when i retired most of our food service
folks are just part-time
because that's still that way yes we've
we've
evolved from full-time to part-time uh
with our the majority of our food
service our managers are full-time
but yes most of our cafeteria staff are
29 hour employees
and then i see your facilities with the
three asterisks is that what you were
referring to with
st yes yes madam chair normally that's a
much smaller amount but
again those are the yester funds and uh
again i shared the five
or actually the four projects that are
coming out of the esser i mentioned the
fifth one which is through our
uh you know our relationship and uh
again through
uh through our reversion funds but the
the four projects that we have going on
now and then again we should have
roughly four million dollars a little
bit more than that available
for i guess the second round of projects
as we receive some recommendations and
evaluate those
debt service that's paying off bills
that we've had renovations that's come
through
for the years things that's happened in
the last
10 15 years okay yes i guess the most
recent madam chair
would be i guess the train project that
i mentioned
five years ago that probably is i guess
the most recent
uh you know we we have purchased buses
since then but that's something we put
in our
in our uh budget and we don't
fund that entire debt service anymore i
mean i'm saying us
board of supervisors you all incur a lot
of that you pull that from your own
budget
is that correct uh some yes ma'am
all right um you uh
you don't have a uh debt reserve
category you don't have any rainy day
funds we're
held back uh no no no
no year to year no man chair the one
item there that we where we have
contingency reserve
again an explanation there we
are going through transition with
federal requirements
on our accounting we have to break down
things where historically they were
division level we have to break them
down now by school
so we do not know uh with that
contingency reserve
that that truly is not a reserve that
money is dedicated toward
sick those in those individuals that
retire
and sick leave your buyouts and so forth
at the end of the year
that's what that money is reserved for
but the only problem is we don't know if
they're going to be
again bus drivers or maintenance
gentlemen
or secondary or you know if they're
going to be at home acre high school or
lebanon high school
all those things come into play so we
just have this as a separate account
and that account will zero out as the
year progresses and it will fill in
to those uh more specific schools
and uh again line items that apply
toward those people as they retire
it's just about what and so
that that i did look the because it used
to be esea for me but now the
s esser that is elementary secondary
school emergency relief because i had to
that's new since i retired i did look
that up so
all right any other thoughts or comments
that you'd like to
tell us technology oh yes i forgot
tim i'm so sorry technology
well would you like to explain some of
that well that's
mostly it's most a lot of it is state
funding um
which is still in support of the online
sol testing initiative we have to
maintain a certain
computer to student ratio
certain amount of handheld devices
networking internet access
and there's also a local match that goes
along with that
there's other funds in there as well um
online subscriptions like the
accelerated reader
the parent notification system that
calls when
you know that well used to be when
there's no school but that's not
as much the case anymore but anyway
there's several
online subscriptions and the technology
technicians and the instructional
resource
staff is in that as well
does your technology pay for the school
lunch program the point of sale now
or is that or dr brown's that come out
of another
that comes out of the food service it
does it does
okay dr brown i appreciate you sending
that
nine line item budget over but that's
really not what i had in mind
i wanted a detailed budget you know just
like we used to get
you know i had this for you know 16 and
seven
and it's not so much that we want to
control what you're spending
it it's just that when people come to me
and ask me
how much money we give the schools and
want to know what
you're spending it on you know it's
tough to say
well education technology you know
transportation you know they want a
little more detail in that so i can say
well we've got a
gifted program that you know we do you
know it's a lot of grant money
people i don't think a lot of people
don't understand how much grant money is
really built into that
46 to 57 million dollar number
so if it'd be possible i'd just like to
get a copy of that detail budget
abs again mr breeding absolutely the
issue is we don't have that
detail of a budget ready yet uh our
board is going to receive
that budget hopefully next week yeah
yeah
okay but yeah that's no problem i'll
definitely get that with the boards
my board's blessing i'll definitely get
that over to mr lester
some of the money that's coming down the
pike i guess on that additional
funding that you're going to receive i
know on the
line items that you've listed to be able
to fund those is any of that money going
to be earmarked for bonuses or
for any individual or anybody the
the the money can be used for hazard pay
we've used again
a large portion of sr1 for that and then
with the crf funds
uh right before christmas we were able
to do that as well
uh and and and i do believe the board
members are discussing the possibility
of again some type of again hazard pay
moving forward at the start of the new
year but again
the key thing with the money is that
this money is not recurring money so the
only thing that it really could be used
for
is some form of hazard pay which is a
one-time non-reoccurring
expense the the doe has
quickly told us that it cannot be used
for
salaries or anything of that nature
other than
hiring new folks that have a specific
purpose for a temporary
length of time those
could be someone that we were you know
we could
hire but again that would be um
that individual would have i guess a
sunset clause in their contract
uh that you know at such and such time
that that contract would be
null and void so when that money runs
out or you give them a contract once the
money's gone
that job's gone yes
you know dr brown i'm i'm sitting here
and i'm looking at
the reversion money back from the school
systems the county
and i can track it from 2016
which was an anomaly i think and we got
like a million
two thousand a million two hundred and
five thousand dollars back and i
understand how that happened
next year we got 626 000
back in 2017. 2018
we got 497 000 back
2019 we got 556 000 back
2020 we got 535 000 back so
then in itself it's kind of your
contingency fund as i understand it
so and understand that i understand that
we did
some projects out of some of that
contingency money like
uh roofs and things of that nature
and i think we're doing the ag building
out of it this year
absolutely yeah so that's kind of a
built-in contingency fund as i see it
it is and and you know i guess to speak
to that mr breeding
uh you know we we efficiently spend 99.5
percent of our budget
just about every year and again i think
it's poor management
if at the end of the year we have no
money left because that tells me
whoever's in charge of that money is
going out and buying 2 million pencils
when that money can have a better
purpose so
you're exactly right but as i shared
earlier some of the purchases some of
the
expenses that we deal with are fluid
much like the
cost of the wood to buy material
sheeting material for the you know for
the ag shop
much like the fuel you know i shared
earlier 120
000 gallons of gasoline and diesel
at market value plus 15 cents per gallon
and well again you know what you know if
we have a
refinery shut down because it's been
hacked you know think about how that
you know we were a day away two days
away
from considering shutting down schools
okay
because of that very issue so you can
imagine what the price
well we all know what the price has been
as far as us
publicly seeing it well us seeing it
commercially again is still
increased so there is some fluidness to
our budget
there's things like again at the end of
the year the last thing i want to do is
have all of our money spent
uh by buying two million pencils and
then all of a sudden we blow an engine
out of a
snub nose bus uh and and now we need to
repair that the last thing that i want
to do
is come back to this board and say oh by
the way we've spent all of our money
we've got four weeks to go before the
end of the school year i need more money
to pay for this
to me i think that's very poor
management so i don't want that to
happen so what we do
is we do look at those things that we
have purchased
we're looking at purchasing and so forth
and we look at our finances as the year
progresses
and if we have an approved purchase that
we do now have funds for and we feel
that we can safely move forward with
that purchase
at that point in time we do that because
i want
the money to come back to the citizens i
want to be good stewards of the money
and again i think you know as i shared
earlier that we've done an incredible
job
i mean we replaced not not repaired we
replaced the roof
on lebanon middle school in 2016. we
replaced the roof
not repaired on lebanon elementary
school in 2017.
we did a roof repair in lebanon high
school 2018 we built a concession stand
press box restroom
on the baseball field at castlewood high
school 2019 we built
we redid the press box at home acre high
school 2020
we we took care of a wall
that was falling on the back half of
lebanon elementary school
and that had to be done we had the
contingency funds reversion money
to do that it did not cost the board of
supervisors or the board of ed
a penny because that was money that we
jointly had
saved and we're able to apply it toward
that and the ag
shop today so we've taken care of over 2
million dollars
worth of capital improvements
and that was money that wasn't budgeted
money that we didn't have to go and find
money by
us working together and just being good
stewards of the taxpayer money
one of the things that's been approached
to me which i addressed is
four or five years ago i guess is uh in
our budget sessions
is how do we get to the point where
we're going to be competitive
with surrounding counties with our
teachers wages our janitors our cooks
our lower level
employees it's a real concern of mine
and i think it's a concern of all of us
because
if we don't fix it we're losing teachers
and now with uh pieces of legislation or
laws that have been enacted you know
then if we lose kids
so we got a two phase thing that we're
dealing with here you know
washington county and tazzle buchanan
county you know paying
a very uh look i guess
i'm going to say lucrative amount of
money per teacher than we do
and that can's been kicked down the road
so long you know that's something
that's got to be addressed and i've
asked numerous times for a short mid
long term plan
we're not going to fix it overnight i
know that sure but it's going to have to
be
looked at i'm very competitive in sports
or anything you know i don't like to
lose i don't think none of us here do
in this room or you dr brown or anybody
and i think for us to be competitive and
like you
talked about earlier with bringing new
industry in here and we've done
i think a very good job of bringing new
new jobs new industry
enacting education policies and new
programs for kids but
if we never get competitive with
surrounding counties or i'm not saying
we got to be above them i'm just saying
get close
enough to where we can attract people to
live here work here and build a home
here
to stay here instead of driving 30
minutes down the road
in wise county or washington county or
towson county to work
it's just a real big concern of mine and
i know it's not going to be anything we
can fix overnight
but i would love to see us work on a
plan now
me and steve worked on a matrix plan
that identified the issue
when we first got elected to try to work
through that to see how we get there
from here because we know we have got to
be
competitive in nature whether it be
industry driven
or education driven or whatever and we
can't put it on the backs of
you know on our taxpayers we got to
figure out a way to
maybe cut the fluff and figure out a way
to get it to a point where we can
we can do this yeah again well
you know well said mr eaton i totally
agree with you 100
and this was an issue that neither the
current board or even the previous board
nor this board or the previous board
really had uh anything to do with this
was something that you were left with
i mean the history if you go back we had
a 10-year window of time where one what
one raise was given okay but yet
you know again the insurance companies
don't care they still
increase the you know the amount of the
you know the premiums and so forth
but yeah you're totally right and i and
i totally agree with you
uh and again it's really going to take
something very dynamic to fix that
because with our budget 85 percent of
our budget 80 to 85 percent of our
budget
is personnel whether it be their salary
their benefits
their retirement but when you look at
the school budget
80 to 85 percent of that is personnel
so where could money come from to
increase
the personnel monies all right so that
we could share that
with personnel again you know that's
that's that's the question
well you know again we can't do it all
the esther money because it's
non-reoccurring funds
these have to be funds that are
reoccurring every year so we can't do it
out of that
um you know again when you look at
operations and so forth when you look at
you know we've got to have buses we've
got to have fuel in the buses we have to
have
electricity in the in the in the
buildings
have to have water and so forth i mean
when you look at the overall picture
it is a very very daunting task
and you're right i mean it's going to
take it probably would take
a three to four million dollar influx of
reoccurring money
to and it wouldn't put us near the top
it wouldn't even
really put us in the middle but it would
definitely put us more
near the middle than where we're at now
i mean we're at the bottom
but it definitely will get us off of the
bottom but again that cost would be
i'm i'm thinking three to four million
dollars of reoccurring money every year
to make that happen
the one of the issues is this
reoccurring i mean is these
state mandated raises you know
throughout the state because
the the gap just keeps getting bigger
and bigger is all your if
all you're ever able to do is that is
that state mandated raise
because you know five percent of a
salary in washington county is a lot
more money than five percent of a salary
so that gap just continues to get wider
and wider and wider
it does and and you know there's you
know i guess there's a big misnomer out
there as well
when when we hear that the state's
approved a five percent teacher raise or
five percent raise for schools that's
that's not accurate okay that's that's
not
true what they've done is they've
approved the state's
share of the appropriation for
a five percent pay raise for soq funded
positions
okay what what does all of that mean
well a state share
the lci the local composite index breaks
down
how much of the responsibility of public
education in each
county or city if they have their own
city school
belongs to the locality and how much of
that belongs to the state
we have one of the top 10 lcis in the
state okay
our lci is 0.23 and some change so 23
percent
of the expense associated with operating
the school division
falls to the board of supervisors in
this case okay
and then we talk about soq funded
positions
that's a formula process okay the soqs
is a 29-page document available on the
department of education website
but basically what it is is a book of
formulas
and it simply says this you
you get one teacher for every 24
kids for this third grade class
so where do non-soq funded positions
come from we've got soq
where what are these non-soq funded
positions where do they come from
let me give you a very very
straightforward example
let's say we had 72 third graders
36 of them were in hohnecker 36 of them
were in castlewood now we know that's
not the case but again
it's just an example how many teachers
are we going to need for these 36
kids over here in honaker for third
grade two gonna have 18 in each class
okay same thing for castlewood right
so we're going to have four teachers and
i think everyone would expect us to have
four teachers to cover 72 kids
third graders especially
well the problem is the soq formula is
24 to run
to one so three times 24 is 72.
the state's only going to acknowledge
the existence
of three of those teachers
so that fourth teacher and again they're
not
marked or anything okay but that fourth
teacher
funding wise is non-soq now what happens
there
what happens there is that the raise is
100 percent
on the locality okay the state doesn't
give us a penny
for our non-soq funded positions we as a
locality have to eat that
okay that's on us to find so
when you're looking at a five percent
pay raise that sounds good when you
first hear it but the reality is
they're putting you as a board of
supervisors in a tough spot
because of that five percent the state
is expecting
a certain dollar amount to come from the
locality to pay
their part of that
and and again it's even compounded now
because we have a minimum wage issue
that we're dealing with now
the minimum wage is is increasing in
steps
and our employees work on contracts so
we're going to have to
establish contracts for our employees
and with the
this is the second time we actually
dealt with a small increase last year
because we weren't too far out of whack
with the uh you know with that raise but
with this new
raise that's kicking in okay that was
significant for us
we're going to have people that are
guaranteed right now regardless of what
we do
if they're employed they're going to get
about a 12 13 increase next year
because of the minimum wage requirements
so those people that are operating
on those you know positions that don't
pay a lot
are going to see a pretty significant
raise this year because of the minimum
wage requirement
and you're looking at the entire
clerical scale was redone
the bottom half of the custodial scale
was redone
really every classified staff that we
have their scales were redone
with the exception of the upper half of
our custodial scale
our mechanics and our maintenance men
and bus drivers
and those will or some of those will see
it
this time next year so that's
an additional expense and again where's
that money gonna come from
but we're looking for uh over 200 250
000 to cover an increase in minimum wage
for next year because again russ camp
public schools
is the largest employer in russell
county we have over 600 employees
so that's another variable comes into
play
i would like to say in relation to what
mr eaton is saying
for us to be able to be competitive but
i think we brought this
up in another meeting in order to be
competitive
we as russell county citizens have got
to
have the revenue coming in jobs will be
one thing
increasing taxes but we don't have it so
even though we were
hoping and wishing we have got to see
reality reality come about for jobs to
come in
people be spending money building homes
and things
so it's a wish list but we got more than
just that we have got to work
to see those jobs come in and it's not
like he said it's not going to be
overnight
we can begin to work for that wish
toilet
until we don't have the revenue coming
in
like some of these other counties you
could take the cold and gas severance
tax at buckingham county and somewhere
else we don't get that
so they can be able to do more than we
can because they have the revenue
coming in to do so am i right
yes yes you're exactly right and the
work again that the board of supervisors
has done with attracting
businesses over the last you know three
four five years is
is again noteworthy you know we we do
have great roads
uh quick access to 81.
you know again i think we
this
120 school divisions cannot say
very very affluent school divisions very
very
prestigious school divisions
that cannot say that so again something
that you know
it all boils down to our teachers and
staff and the hard work they do and
their willingness
to to work through some diversity but
yeah everything we can do for them i'm
totally
in support of and i'd be more than happy
to uh sit down with you know again
mr lester and uh you know again my madam
chair and
madam chair and whoever else you know to
talk about these things but
again for us on a school division we
can't do it by ourselves
it is going to take a partnership to
move us
from the bottom as far as teacher
salaries are concerned because again
our budget is 80 to 85 personnel as we
see here today
i think you know we're in the same boat
as far as the
uh increases in the minimum wage it's
something we're going to look at on some
of our people probably not as
drastic as as your group but you know
we've talked and talked and talked you
know we said talk about it forever
we've got to come up with some sort of
plan to to to address this
and i don't have a clue what it's going
to be
uh but but now's the time to act and
maybe past time to act
and one of the comments you made about
the reversions
funds and doing the projects with
unbudgeted money
that money was really budgeted it was
just unspent yeah
money it wasn't budgeted for that
particular line item so it was either
it was either more than it needed to be
to start with or
somebody did a great job in in you know
being very prudent with those funds so
madam chair
yes um i'd like to say ask a question
possibly and maybe this has been
discussed already and so if it's gone
over top of my head i apologize
but one of the things that i have been
looking at
is other divisions or other counties
and the teacher pay in those counties
but what i'm not seeing in some of these
issues that i've been looking at
is the insurance rates that those folks
now i know you're not going to have the
answer to this and i don't expect you to
but i want to throw this out there
because perhaps
our insurance company that we're using
might be
we might be doing a better job of taking
care of the folks
as opposed to another county that's
maybe paying higher but it's actually
what their take-home pay is is not what
we're taking home possibly and i don't i
don't have the answer that but i'm
trying to dig that out do you have any
notion at all
about um if a teacher left here and went
to another county
and it looks like a really good raise
when they go
yes on paper but when the
net income comes back across what kind
of
what kind of net income are we looking
at does anybody know the answer to that
we we do track that i will say that we
haven't
we haven't done that recently but we do
have those conversations mr fletcher
with the director of hr responsibilities
does reach out and secure that type of
information and we try to prepare that
for our insurance meetings that we have
we have at least
two insurance meetings there's been
times that we've had
10 here recently trying to fix
our broken system okay and we have
really went far with that we've went
from a a reference based pricing system
to a 50 50 plan to a
70 30 plan this upcoming year we're
going to go with 80 20
traditional plan for lack of a better
word with actually lower out of pocket
expenses
so i can share definitely that our
employee plus one and employee family
is one of the top programs in region
seven a top three or four program our
employee only is a little
more expensive we kind of put that on
the backs of our employees and we've
noticed that we've talked about that
and we're going to try to address that
moving forward but
to think four years ago we were dealing
with reference space pricing and now
we've progressed to the point now that
we have an 80 20 plan on the docket for
next year
yes it's been something very very
concerning of our
budget committee members and they've
done a tremendous job mr lovelace mr
breeding
uh mr bostik and uh mr gibson
with with guiding us and bringing us out
of that
so we're we're in a good a good place
right now with our insurance
but to answer your question we're very
competitive with employee plus one and
employee family coverage
okay again a top three four out of the
19 school divisions in region seven
uh and the the employee only were more
in the middle of the pack
for that maybe a little below middle of
the pack for that group
but again we've got some great ideas and
we're going to hopefully be able to move
that forward
and make those improvements in the
future
all right is the matrix plan that
david was talking about is that the one
that you and i had discussed that we
will meet about the employees getting
their
level funding up is that was that you
developed in 2016-17
is that you still have those numbers and
that plan
to get employees together is that what
you and i talked about a couple of weeks
ago
yes it will be something i'll have to to
to get back on
you know the top of my desk okay yes yes
i have that information all right
thanks
this is probably not related to the
budget but it's been brought to my
attention of
asking the possibility of people that
don't have
children public school but private
school charter school and whatever
i understand that that may be something
that the state has to
decide rather than the board here
now you know now we have school choice
available in the state of virginia but
it's not funded
right so you know a person can be
homeschooled they can go to private
school they can go to
uh again a charter school which we don't
have uh
they can go to a christian school a
private institution and so forth that's
fine
but they're not funded the voucher
movement has never made it off of
you know i guess off the governor's desk
okay there's been years that it hasn't
made
made it out of general assembly there's
been years that it has made it out been
vetoed by the governor but as far as
uh the school board being able to you
know to you know write a check to a
a parent and say you know here here's
the the funds associated with your
child and you can do with that as you
please as far as
picking a school that's no that's not
something that's legal teddy some of the
information i got on the computer
relating to that wasn't about the state
you could do an application
and actually a account be set up
to um to fund a student
if they qualify in a certain
circumstance
that he just referenced um in 2017 there
was a bill
um in the general assembly and it
actually passed the house and the
senate and it was vetoed by the governor
it was it was talking about
education parental choice for education
savings accounts
and that's i think that's what dr brown
was referencing but that was never
passed into law and that would have to
be passed into law
by the general assembly um for anything
like that to be
legal in the state of virginia that's
one in material that you influenced us
that they said hitting the governor veto
yes now i thought it went on and read
that that
another than that there's
there's there's charter schools which um
is something a little bit different
from that um and so that is something
that's an option in virginia
but um it's not it's not it's not
it's not like having your free choice in
a private school or anything like that
well i can speak to that i mean
basically a charter school
is a public school but it has a focus
so you could have a charter school for
the performing arts and they
have a more enhanced program for the
performing arts
you could have a charter school for stem
and it would have a greater end emphasis
on again science technology engineering
mathematics
so yeah a charter school is a public
school
but again it is one that's been chosen
by the board to have a
certain academic focus the graduation
requirements are still the same
so you still have to have three math
classes you got to pass one with a
verified credit
so forth and so on to all the graduation
requirements
the the most prestigious you know
charter school in the state of virginia
and our three high schools all have the
same graduation requirements it's just
that they have a different set of
offerings
that are skewed toward one particular
idea like
performing arts or stem well i guess i'm
more or less thinking upon
home school or christian school
those wouldn't be charter school and
right now they don't get
uh paid for that the parents don't they
have to pay more or less a two issue
for that child to go to that particular
institution yes that's between the
the parent of that institution yes sir
i like to i like to put forward them the
statement of i like to see where the
parents that paying taxes
are not going to kill not going to
public school to be able to be
reimbursed some way
because they are fantastic most of them
you know especially for
on real estate and somewhere along the
way that
those parents that send to christian
school or homeschooling
could be reimbursed for that
that's you know i'll let the legal
counsel speak to that but
as far as my knowledge is concerned
that's illegal
i know you've got uh what i had a number
down
around two or three hundred people
that's either a christian school
a home school now in russell county we
have an
80 home school yeah normally we have
about 80 students
parents that choose to homeschool their
child and then
with the three private schools that we
have uh this year the numbers were
uh 36 58 and seven seven oh it's the
numbers
yeah and those numbers are in line with
what we've seen historically
over the last several years
but we we we actually have to reach out
and engage
in january of every year we reach out to
our uh
you know you know to our friends in in
private schools
and we asked them you know federal funds
are available to you here are the
federal funds that
are available to you are you interested
in securing and using these federal
funds
and then they they indicate yes or no
and if they say yes
then we'll continue that dialogue and
we'll set up a meeting and establish how
those funds have to be used moving
forward
but most i mean as far as i can recall
most of all of our private schools have
said no to that because of again the
federal requirements associated with
those federal funds and the restrictions
of how you spend the money though
yes
dr brown i looked on the department of
education website about homeschooling
and and private schooling i guess
and they keep track of all that but
i looked it was maybe in 19 maybe in
last year's numbers possibly but i saw
like 118 i think in home school
in what which i assumed was home school
and then there was another
like 50 some odd in a religious
exemption
would that be the christian schools it
would okay
and and that's and that's a fluid number
mr breeding i mean i gotta be honest
with you that's something that we deal
with
all years people moving in and out of
that they'll they'll bring the
students back to k-12 and then you know
someone else will move into the
christian school
uh or what have you but uh yeah the
numbers i have are 36
for uh i guess castlewood christian
when this document was completed in
january 58 for the learning center and
seven at
spring city baptist
that's the numbers i had okay
82 yeah home school yes yes about 80
home schools and that's
and again that's that's been you know
fairly consistent and that's a snapshot
of that particular time and day
isn't it i remember doing that right it
was on yeah exact same thing it's a very
fluid
environment that flows comes and goes
okay
all right anyone else have any questions
for dr brown any thoughts any concerns
no i appreciate you guys again we've
done a lot of great things together
all right thank you thank you much we
appreciate you coming in
all right our next item will be the
opening of our
public hearing on our 21
22 budget and the 22 tax rate public
hearing
so if anyone has any comments or wants
to speak
please come to the podium and state your
name and give us any concerns
on our public on-air budget
and uh lonzo would you like to speak
anymore to the budget or would you
rather
do it after they have their comments
okay
all right go ahead okay go ahead sir
state your name
nathan kaiser i had a i had a question
and i don't know if dr brown can answer
this or
maybe it's just asked and answered
but our budget and i'm going off of last
year's the 47 million dollars
um that average is out if you take the
debt service out to
um thirteen thousand six hundred and
seventeen dollars per student
the state average spending is twelve
thousand
two hundred and sixteen dollars and the
state average of funding
is thirteen thousand one hundred sixty
nine thousand
that's the average for the state every
school figured into that
so according to those numbers we are
over funding
by 500 per student
average and yet we've got the third
lowest pay of teachers in the state
and uh dr brown was was talking about
raising
the school budget by a couple million
dollars or several million dollars to
help pay for
teacher increases in pay and
i'm having a hard time figuring out why
we're spending more than the state
average and we
can't get better than third from the
bottom on the teacher bay
so that's that's one major concern there
and
asked and answered probably but um
another thing we need we need to look at
um
is the homeschooling and private
schooling um
and i understand with cove it increased
quite a bit but i think you're going to
see
that that increase sustained
and on top of that we've got
other other issues critical race theory
the transgender
policies that are required by the school
board
there are many people here tonight that
have major concerns with that
and are very very seriously considering
and very likely will remove their
children from the public education
system
and this is not a new thing this is
something that has
has progressed over the years in the
curriculum it's something that's
progressed in
the uh bureaucracy of the department of
education
this is built into the system these
things are just now
starting to rear their heads but our
kids are getting educated
they're reading books about sexuality
about things that make you blush
to even talk about they are
getting anti-american anti-race
unity uh the curriculums forced down on
them
and very many people here tonight and
this is why you have so many people here
and there's even more
that have major concerns i have a
petition here
signed by 824 individuals
right here and i'm glad to show any of
you these
of people who want to have the option
to get out of public schools now the
issue is
they're paying taxes and they're held
hostage
basically financially to the public
school system
[Applause]
if they want to go to private school or
christian school they have to fund that
out of their own pockets
absolutely unacceptable now i understand
dr brown and what katie is saying state
fundings to horses point
are off limits that's illegal the county
cannot do anything to touch those the
county can't touch the rlm the
required local match for the county
however for every student that drops out
of enrollment
that's more money less money that's
going to be going to the to the public
or to the public schools
so my suggestion to the school board or
to the to the board
of supervisors here is to l let's take a
first step
into looking into what we can do at the
county level
and i'm not talking about state money
i'm talking about the county's money
what we can do to help help these
parents
afford at a better rate these homeschool
options private school options we need
to take a first step
now to make that move to start that
process
and i would like to see the board to
tonight
make that a priority set up a commission
i'll volunteer i'll be one of the first
ones to volunteer i i'll do a pro bono
i'll do it for free
um looking into what we can legally do
i've got delegate nick freitas i talked
to two days ago
for you don't know who he is he's a
delegate culpepper
he's one of the best delegates we have
in the how in the house representatives
or the house of delegates in virginia he
has pledged to me to support us and
un unequivocally he is going to help us
get connections with people who can help
fund
getting the legal stuff that we need to
get this done
now dr brown's right it's illegal you
can't take state money but we can do
whatever we want with local money
okay so we need to take a look at this
i'm asking the board tonight
and i know it's not part of the budget
i'm asking the board tonight to take
that first step
and i know there's a lot of other people
that probably want to talk to this point
but this is another reason because of
the enrollment drop that we're going to
see
without a doubt that i recommend to the
board
and my request to the board is just to
fund
the public school system month to month
because we're going to see a drop-off
you put the funding to it 100
today it's gone to the school and you
won't recoup it until january
or actually next year fiscal year excuse
me
so you need to consider that strongly
because you are going to see people
leave because no matter what the school
board passes
it's not going to be good it's not going
to be good at all
so i'm asking you all to do those two
things
on the budget consider funding month to
month
and on the school choice please consider
taking that first step tonight let's see
what we can do
thank you
anyone else that wants to speak
um thank you for this opportunity i've
never been to one of these before and
never did really feel need to
but uh you feel like a lot of stuff is
getting pushed down your kid's throat
state your name please oh steven dameron
steven dameron d-a-m-r-o-n
and leaving swords correct yeah and you
as my teacher in elementary school so
i was only three when i was teaching
y'all three three
but uh there's a lot of things that's
come down
that's being sent down our kids without
no choice
to make room for someone else it's our
place as a parent to teach our children
from the time they're born that they are
boys and that they are girls
there's no in-between in the beginning
the bible said
and due to remedy 22 and 5 the woman
shall
talks about wearing that which pertain
to a woman and man wearing that which
pertains to a man
anything outside of that it's an
abomination to god for a woman to dress
that way for a man to dress that
for a man who dressed as a woman as an
abomination
god put men and women here to populate
this earth
if adam hadn't followed in the footsteps
that god wanted him to that
adam would have never had a generation
he would have stopped
because he had died you had to have a
man and a woman
to reproduce and
by them wanting to move in there we're
asking our children
to take this morals
the christian values that's been
instilled in them put them to a side
to agree with the lgbtq
on what their agenda is
i've got my kids at home i teach my kids
at home
i know what they get talked but yet i
pay property taxes
i pay taxes on everything that i've got
and i still had to budget my own kids
education
because i don't agree with what our
schools has come to
how would you feel to have a
five-year-old girl
walk in the same bathroom as a seventh
grade year old boy
it's not gonna flush it ain't gonna
happen
somebody's gonna get hurt somewhere and
all we're wanting to do
as a society is fit in we don't want to
hurt nobody
they don't care about hurting the
christian values as long as
the worldly values are sitting in front
we've got to stand up somewhere either
we stand apart
or we stand together but we've got to
stand for what we believe in what he's
talking about the county money is i
don't know all about all this stuff
i know two plus two is four
and david i know if my kids at home
getting talked
they should have the same equal value as
someone else at school
just because they don't believe in what
they're getting taught at school
they shouldn't be punished to not get it
at home
and uh i think that we need to look at
this over
i know a lot of people in this room and
i know that we've all got the same
values
but i can't understand how
that we can go against what god teaches
in his bible and i heard ms dye pray a
prayer
lord help us to do that which is right
in your eyes
and that's what we need to do every day
i'm a retired coal miner i was a coal
miner by choice
y'all run to be on this board
but if you're a christian you're a
christian first
then you remember this board if you can
tell me that you can't vote with
christian values you're not a christian
you've got to put god first your family
first
then your school
god ought to be more important and if
you get outside if you teach your
youngin
to obey the lord and you'll go to heaven
but then you put those
beliefs aside and say well we can't
bring god into the school
you're teaching your young in a double
standard we've got to teach right
i hate it for children that live in a
household
where the parents raise them if you're a
boy
and you feel like you're a girl then
accept that
that's a lie and we're the schools have
stepped in
in a lot of areas and helping teach that
and the government is wanting it to come
down
full-fledged i don't want my kids in the
same
school in the same restroom my little
five-year-old girl being an earth 12
year old boy
in the bathroom we've got a school
that's empty up in gibbons
and if they're this strongly on it let
them give them their their own school
don't put them in the same restroom with
mine and i thank you for your
opportunity i'm not real smart when it
comes to all this stuff but i know
you're either for god or you're for the
devil so
anyone else uh good evening i'm
pastor james nunley here locally in
lebanon live in lebanon
resident in russell county for many
years i first want to thank you for the
opportunity to speak
this evening and the freedoms that we
have to do so and share these
concerns and thoughts as a pastor and a
concerned parent citizen
russell county i'm greatly saddened
truly greatly saddened
with the direction of our education
system uh in this country
in our state and quite frankly here in
our county
i do so appreciate our educators i don't
want them to take that wrong i so
appreciate them and their efforts
and i truly can't imagine how difficult
their roles
are they're facing these new changes
these changing
times that we're living in and the
challenges they face
with the driving agenda to normalize
transgenderism has been talked about
critical race theory in our schools were
truly faced with a
massive epidemic not covered in media
outlets
honestly as this agenda has placed many
families
between the proverbial rock and hard
place now having said that i'm very
aware that there's a functioning school
board
in place to be a go-between between us
residents
and the school system i do understand
that and that's not
your specific role but i firmly believe
that
action at the county level um can
benefit us can help us
with these things it'd be a great
assistance to many who are faced with a
very difficult decision
as this agenda further infiltrates our
local schools
i'm well aware that our state leaders
have voted down legislation around
school
choice or about your system however you
want to term that
but in spite of that i would like you
each
individually tonight to consider
establishing a foundation step
for giving our residents a legitimate
choice
in education through a county-supported
voucher system
and i agree with brother nathan not not
state funding not
federal funding from the county end
i wish to be very clear that i feel this
step must be accompanied
by understanding and proof in writing
that there be no further overreach from
the county
or from the school system in imposing
any stipulations upon the schools
chosen by those individuals if there
were to be a foundation established
we don't want further infringement on
the freedom to
raise our children and educate them
accordingly
if residents were truly given a choice
by providing equal rights through
funding everybody screaming about equal
rights
what about equal rights through funding
to those who choose differently
the numbers were wrong by the way we had
95 students at the learning center this
year
on 58 95
and a rather large waiting list for this
year
because we can't fit um
given that choice i feel that it would
allow parents who have a religious
and moral belief that far supersede the
ungodly agendas being force-fed to us
from richmond
will give us the often downplayed and
seemingly unattainable opportunity
to follow those beliefs and do what is
best for our families
please prayerfully consider this as you
prepare to approve or deny the proposed
budget
for 2021-2022 school year thank you very
much for your time your consideration in
this matter and i do appreciate
your service and what you're doing i
know it's not an easy place to see it
but i do greatly appreciate your service
thank you
anyway else
uh first this is the first time i've
been here hey state your name and
address please
adela miller and i
my name is daley miller and i am a
resident of swords creek
um i don't want to take a whole lot of
time but i i
just as pastor dameron spoke um
miss dye what a beautiful prayer that
was and um
and there were several amen that i
noticed and
or heard and we also did the pledge of
allegiance
that pledge of allegiance is under god
that's what this nation was founded on
was god
this is the whole reason why they came
to this country
and now we're starting to change
everything and the bible speaks that a
nation that turns against god
and you know we i teach my son it took
me 18 years to have him
he's a miracle of god and you know and
here i have him in school and
david he was on your ball team i mean he
struggles
uh in a lot of things uh but he
has a fear to go to school with this
going to
be um with the transgender and people
coming into the bathroom he says what
about us
what about my right mom and that's why
i'm here today
is is to say that my son
will be pulled i will teach him at home
and
i have a question for mr
brown i wonder how many children were
remedial this year
all together
how many children were remedial were
they taught at home
instead of taking them to school because
of all this covet
you know um where's all that money gone
you know because i'm sure that the
toilet
didn't flush that much you know i mean
you can save a little bit here and there
you know i mean uh i i am um
i work i work hard for my money and i am
very um i take every bit of our money
and i spend it wisely
because that's what we're supposed to do
and and i'm sure y'all do too
but here's the thing i spend my money in
this county
you see when i buy a vehicle i bite in
russell county
i don't go to a different place and do
that
ever and so here's the thing if this is
about
money if this is about the money deal
then there's church buses i'm sure that
would take their
you know that the churches would let
them have the school buses if if
if money's uh not not there you know
we're
we're supposed to be a community of love
we all are on the same team right and i
don't understand why everybody's
fighting against each other
we need to do the right thing and the
right thing
is to make right choices for our
children
and if you want the money from the
county to stay in the county
then you know you're going to have to
you're going to have to help us here
because if not i will not spend a dime
if i got to go to washington county i'll
go to washington county
if i go to tassel i'll go to tassel and
i'm not by myself
because of everybody in here if you want
the money to stay in the county
why don't we outreach and say okay guys
we're going to do this we're going to
fight the government well
you know they're not going to push these
laws down on this and then if you want
support
like you deserve it then be there for us
and we'll be there for you
[Applause]
anyone else
my name's lynn hess i also pastor church
and i second everything that these
last three guests have said but i want
to focus back
more on to the money part of it i was
privy to some information
this week that absolutely astounded me
about our county 1.1 million dollars for
the operation of the central office
we have principles that's making over a
hundred thousand dollars a year
why in the world did i ever go to the
coal mines
how i wished i'd become a teacher
[Applause]
my my we had people working at the coal
mines that had three bachelor's degrees
some of them even had doctorate degrees
not making this kind of money
i think that this board and the school
board ought to look at the budget
of how much people's getting paid there
would be a cap somewhere
you've got principals making over a
hundred thousand dollars a year plus
then they've got an assistant behind
them that's making up around 70 80 000
a year and our teachers are only making
in the 30s
there's something wrong with that
and from what i'm hearing almost
everything comes down from the state how
our schools are run and how the money is
spent
so really all we need is somebody just
dictate where the money goes make sure
it goes the right place we don't need
nobody with no bachelor's degree
i can do that i run a budget at home
i've run my own business
but i'm going to tell you the money
that's going into the school board is
not going where it needs to be going
i don't mind paying the taxes to pay for
good schools good teachers
good facilities that i'm i'm all for it
i want our kids to have the best
but i don't want overeducated people
getting overpaid neither
like i t men making around to over a
hundred thousand dollars a year
come on i mean you really need to
investigate in my opinion
that's all i got to say
[Applause]
anyone else if you want to speak okay
my name is wayne hubbard and i'm a
swords creek resident as well
and uh i just think
someone said the number maybe david uh a
hundred kids might be pulled from the
school system and i think that's a very
extremely conservative estimate
of the kids that will come out of the
school system at 13
000 plus dollars per student is the same
numbers i saw
and the spending at 12 000 is the same
numbers i saw
as well i think we're talking a thousand
kids plus
now you want to talk about budget impact
and that's what we're talking about is
budget
that's that's a large amount of money
guys it's a large amount of money to to
mr brown
and the school system that's going to be
missing
you're not going to really need that 57
million come next year
because of the amount of students are
going to be in my opinion pulled
and i don't think it's just an opinion i
mean i talked to my neighbors
they're i'm a small business owner and i
budget as well and
and sometimes we run on tight budgets
but if we lose that kind of funding
that amount of money per student and we
lose a thousand students think of the
impact
and that is something that you referred
to david uh but
i think it was just a very conservative
estimate i think we need to look at in
reality terms
not not even not a low estimate but
let's try to figure out what that
you know number is to the best of our
ability because
a hundred kids is nowhere near what's
going to be
pulled from the school system and i
understand that the laws are coming down
it's not you guys that are passing these
laws i understand where they're coming
from but we as a county we have to take
a stand
because we won't need a school system
and
and the funding that's going to be
needed from the state
federal money we're going we're not
going to need near that much again
because the kids are going to be pulled
i just think that that that impact is
something that's not being considered
strongly enough and i'd like to ask you
guys to prayerfully and carefully
consider that impact and and and for our
kids
you know they're innocent
they're helpless adults are making
decisions for our children
and they have no opportunity to defend
their self all they can
our religious our religious and moral
ethics
are as important to us as whatever it is
that is
important to the lgbt community and what
i've seen come out from facebook
and different social media platforms
from the russell county school
school board meeting last month is how
hateful that we were
we're not filled with hate i don't hate
those people
i pray we can find the right kind of
help for them
um that's my prayer i don't hate any of
them
and it's not hate and it's misconstrued
in our nation
and and even at the county level at this
point i think
that disagreement somehow
evolves to hate because i disagree with
someone doesn't mean i hate them
i disagree strongly with these laws but
i don't hate people
but uh think about that impact thank you
for your time and for for hearing me
patiently today thank you
anyone else
hey i'm jessica whitt from swords creek
um
so i did speak at the school board
meeting and i kind of just want to
reiterate that
i'm not in any way saying that i
do not care about anyone that's
transgender is not my right to judge
it's only my right
to live you know that's a decision we
each have to make
i don't want to see any kid have
violence against them because of
something they believe
whether they're they say they're
transgender or not i don't think they
should be bullied i think everybody
should be equal
but with that being said i also have a
13 year old daughter
who goes to high school this coming year
um
it terrifies me to think that she's
going to be in that bathroom and none of
nobody can tell me that she's going to
be safe
um i do not think that a transgender kid
is the person that we have to worry
about
i do think it's the door that you're
gonna open
to other people um
it is my choice on how i'm going to
educate my child from here
i hate to take that experience of high
school away from her some of the best
days that i remember
um i understand
there's parts of the law that we're
going to have to figure out how we're
going to
make this work
i pray for those that have to make those
decisions but
with that being said i guess what we're
asking is
at least give us a little leeway i mean
you gotta account that there's probably
gonna be kids dropping out
i mean we just live in a small area
you're in the bible belt um
you could be one of the first boards
that starts
trudging the way to figure this out you
know our governor won't give us the
rights
to have freedom of choice and have that
funding and a voucher
but maybe as a county you know you can
help
um and pay in those bills to the school
system
on a month a month to see what's going
to happen
to me is going to be the smartest way to
handle that money
um and you know just to see what's going
to come down
and so as a person that was employed
as a teacher's aide for several years
i can tell you that my pay was not
enough to pay for groceries
for my family thank goodness my husband
had a good job
and he was able to let me have that time
with the kids and be on their schedule
it was a blessing
um but my pay was i took a
complete cut and paid to come there it
was a blessing
but it was not enough to pay for our
groceries
um the whole entire time i was there i
was visited
once by someone from central office
i mean i had you know great help with
the principal
and those types of things but you're
talking people that's making 70 to 100
000 plus
and you don't come to make sure that
your policies are being
carried out um i also worked for head
start for many years i was a specialist
part of being that is if you had
policies
then how do you know they're being
worked
do you go do you make sure do you check
do you guys get reports on what they're
doing
out in the school system because their
job is not to sit in the office
their job should entail being out there
to help
your teachers your people that are
getting paid nothing
um i just think it's a time time that we
take a look at that
and make sure our money's being spent
the right way that we're not paying
people
more than what they deserve and that you
know your underpaid people
can they buy groceries for what you're
paying them when you got people making a
hundred thousand dollars who still get
the raises that go out
um so i guess you know just think about
that
don't close the door leave the door open
until we can figure this out
thank you
i'm pastor don from green valley baptist
church i live on green valley road
right next to the church
as i've sat here listen this my first
time being here
i appreciate the prayer of
miss rebecca but i think that
this is bigger than dollars and cents
although that is big and i know that's a
concern for all of our parents
this is a question of values
this board i am quite certain after
listening to the opening prayer
stands on the principles of god's word
many of us know what god's word says
this is a time in america when this
board
you were elected were elected to stand
up for the principles
of the word of god this is a time in
america
when we as citizens are going to have to
stand
on god's word stand with god and stand
for what is right
it is time in america for us to tell our
government
those in the state no we're not going to
take this anymore
you're going to have to listen to us
and my hope is that you would remember
that just as i will one day
give an account to god for the decisions
that i've made
so will this board give an account to
god for the decisions that you make
my hope for the school board is that the
school board would come together with
this board in unity
that we they would know this board and
the school board would know that the
citizens of russell county stand behind
them and stand with them if they will
stand up for what is right
and they will do what is right
it is time dr david eaton you said
it's time for the school i hear that we
can't figure out how to raise teacher
salaries you said well we've got to look
at the fluff
i think it is time to look at the fluff
for the salaries of those in the school
office
it's time to take a good look at every
item of the budget a detailed budget
it's time to look and it's time to do
and it's time to act and it's time to
stand up for god
and it's time to stand up for god in
america today and it can start right
here
and let's pray to god that when it
starts here a revival will begin from
here that will sweep this nation and we
will come back to god
thank you for your time
anyone else
hi my name is emily rogers and i didn't
know i was going to speak tonight
i live here in lebanon my husband and i
uh live here and
one of the points that i would like to
make is we have served as youth pastors
for three and a half years
and we have seen teenagers do things to
get attention and so when parents or
when teachers cannot even question
students saying oh i'm transgender i'm
questioning my identity
how do we know that there are kids that
are not
doing this inappropriately to maybe get
photos of
students in the opposite genders
bathroom or locker room
and so that's just something to consider
i think a lot of parents
will pull their students out we
homeschool for this very reason and i
have a lot of friends and we've actually
come together we've formed a homeschool
group in this area because
we don't want our kids indoctrinated
with critical race theory
it sounds trendy it sounds cool but it's
not
it is about equity it is not about
equality we want equality in america
that's what america is about
equity means oh because this person's
black
they need a boost or this person's
mexican they need a big boost
but because this person's just a white
male they we need to put them all on the
same playing field
and that's what america is not about and
so we need to fight that in this
community
critical race theory is rooted in
socialism
and so the other thing is i also want to
bring up the vaccine issue
right now it is under emergency use
authorization
and currently our we have the vaccine
injury court in america
4.4 billion dollars has been paid out to
people of injured children
and people who have died if it isn't
under emergency youth authorization
your child gets it and dies do you know
what you can do
nothing you cannot go to court you
cannot sue anyone you get
no payout currently right now
myocarditis is on the rise the cdc is
investigating it
there are the vaccinated population
of children from the ages of 12 to 17
they're only 10 of the vaccinated
population but they are making up over
65 percent of the cases of myocarditis
somebody who's 80 years old and gets the
vaccine and
they have maybe they have 10 more years
of expected life expectancy
and they get myocarditis they could
probably live with that i mean it would
affect their quality of living but
you give it to a 10 year old what's that
live for the rest of their life
and so there will be parents who pull
out because they don't want their
children to be the lab rats
and it's not okay and the other aspect
these are made with cell lines of
aborted babies
it's a sin in the eyes of lord
so if this county allows that to happen
we are sitting before the lord and so
sorry we need to set up a voucher system
so parents who want to honor the lord to
protect their children
they have that option and they can get
their tax money back and give their kids
a great education
and even if we don't get the money of
this county you know what teaching them
the bible is better than anything
they're gonna get in public is cool
[Applause]
anyone else probably want to speak on
the public hearing of our budget
my name is debbie lamkin i've been a
longtime citizen of russell county and
i've been sitting here
looking at the seal the heart of
southwest virginia
i've never been ashamed to say i'm from
lebanon
russell county virginia usa
and i'm the proud mother and
mother-in-law
and grandmother that's why i'm here god
is first in our life and everything
and what the bible says is what i've
tried to teach my children my
grandchildren and live a life before my
family and friends
to reflect that god's first and
everything
i'm proud to be from russell county and
i know and respect most of
you all uh knowing you
and i expect
one woman stood up and made the
difference to take prayer out of school
one counting in virginia
can stand up and make a difference in
our state
a state that we have grown up being
proud of
all our lives and what's it coming to
it's not so good to be so proud anymore
virginia
please make a difference thank you
all right anyone else is there anybody
out in the lobby that would like to
speak
okay yes ma'am my name is jeff plaster
and i'm from sword creek
i would like to just say it's not that
the christian people
hates the transgender just as christians
we love them all
and a lot of them it's being deceived
that they are
that way that they were born that way
god don't make no mistakes
he makes a man and he makes a woman he
don't make a
in between and i just want to say it
i understand that there's a lot of
problems that
it's going to take a lot of effort to
fix but our
local government has to stand up
to watch up our enrichment and let them
know that we're taking a stand
for what's right for what jesus died for
us for
that we can have our religion
and they're not going to take it away
from us by sending
laws down here to us telling us that we
have to put boys and girls in the same
bathroom
i don't care who says what it's not
right
and when it comes right down to it we're
going to be judged for what we do
each one of us will be judged for
standing up for what's right and what's
wrong
and as long as i can i'm gonna voice it
if it ain't in line with the bible
and it ain't gonna be right
and the good lord has uh
blessed this part of the country it's
just now getting here because i've been
out of the united states
and we have had the deal he's been all
over the united states and it's moving
in here now more and more
so i would like to ask you please stand
up for the lord
and vote the right way on anything that
pertaining is
transgender sex it's not that we don't
love them
i'll take them to church with me anytime
they want to kill the church i'll pray
for them i pray for them daily
but i won't i want this the problem is
the devil has tried to take over and
we're letting them
with them take prayer out of school well
now is coming up and there'll be more
and it's going to have to stop and we're
asking y'all to help us stop it right
now
thank you
do you want to speak sir come here
my name is chad lampkin i'm from
hansonville uh
uh i guess be the moxon district i just
like to say that
you know i think pretty much everybody
here must be in agreement to
what's uh what's already been said by
everyone else and i'm in agreement
but i would like to the camera's not
working outside so we can't see in here
and i don't figure you can see out there
either
i just like to be sure you know that
there's about 60 people outside
that that are in agreement with
everything that's been said so far
and and i'm 100 in agreement with what
we can't break the law i mean you know
and if what dr brown said is right that
it's illegal
to we don't do anything until legal but
as far as i know we are in charge of our
county fund
and and and i would like to say that i
am 100 for
you using our fund and for we we
homeschooled our kids
from the time our son was in second
grade and he's 21 now
uh you know what we put the bill on all
that we didn't get
i'm not saying this to get any gain from
myself personally
but but we have a fight for future
generations here in this county too
on top of that you know
my children are going to live here the
rest of their life more than likely i
mean
that's what my prayer is who knows they
may go somewhere else but
but i'm proud to live in this county i
love this county you know and i love my
neighbors i
i i wouldn't change a thing but but i
think the
the the sense of everybody here is we
can make a difference
and uh and we don't have to do anything
illegal to do that
um you know and i and i'm asking you and
actually begging you
you know take step go out on a limb and
and and the county will be behind you
if you do this i mean you know and that
and we do appreciate your service that's
been said before
and you know we we appreciate what y'all
do for us every day
and every time you have a meeting and
but like i say it will not go unnoticed
if
if we go out on the limb here and do
what's right
thank you
anyone else any of the folks out in the
lobby
anyone else want to speak on our
county budget uh ma'am chair
yes we had several people that made some
comments here tonight and i would
i think that it would be good if the
public had some clarification on that
and one of those comments came from
pastor lynn hess
and he stated about the 1.1 million
dollars in central office
and so i'm just wondering if i can put
dr brown back on the spot
that you would like to be able to talk
about that a little bit
so that we can get clarification uh yes
ma'am
thank you first of all that's
that's that's not accurate information
um
it's a very common document that's foid
every year
this this this is a document in question
um and the information has the annual
salary monthly salary then in the
comments it talks about the stipends and
so forth associated with advanced
degrees
and if they are the supplements as far
as being administrator and so forth
so the person who originally made the
claim that the central office
administration was
1.1 million dollars is is wrong
they added that comment section in to
the
annual salary that had already been
calculated the annual salary actually
already includes those comments
so that comment actually is over or
right out two hundred thousand dollars
off it's inflated uh
almost two hundred thousand dollars
excuse me excuse me sorry madam chair
um dr brown could you expound on that a
little bit please and the audience
um i'm sorry i'm not the chairwoman but
we don't have conversations
so if you'll get the questions we'll be
happy to ask those of dr brandt
absolutely and this is something that i
would have been happy to
explain if anyone had reached out to me
and called me or wanted to stop by and
have a meeting i'm more than happy to
speak about any of this all this is open
foiable transparent information
there isn't one single thing that i've
shared
that isn't again open so i'm more than
happy to have this conversation
with anyone at any time but again this
this information again is about two
hundred thousand dollars off but the way
it works in public education if you have
a bachelor's degree
that's the minimal requirement to be a
teacher and if you choose to go and get
an advanced degree which would be a
master's degree
then you do have an opportunity once you
secure that degree
to receive an advance advanced
degree
supplement of two thousand to twenty
four hundred dollars twenty six hundred
dollars
depending on what school division it is
okay so that's common
in all school divisions that i've ever
heard of once you go back to school
get an advanced degree you receive a
small stipend for that
and then again when it comes to being an
administrator especially
and whether it's a principal or a
central office administrator
one of the first things that people i
think miss out on is the fact that
a teacher's contract and the salaries by
the way for
administrators are based off of teacher
rates what they would
make if they were a teacher okay but the
first thing that
people need to realize is we have
12-month
contract for administrators they work 12
months teachers work
10 so if we have someone who applies for
and gets a job as a principal from a
teaching position possibly it doesn't
happen often but every now and then
but theoretically that person let's say
they're making 40 000
well the first thing we're going to do
is take that salary divided by 10 to get
a monthly rate of 4
000 a month and then we're going to
multiply that by 12
because they're working 12 months and
not 10 months
so before they take on any additional
responsibilities
anything of that nature they go from 40
to 48
just because of the fact that they're
working two more months okay
then you have the advanced degree they
have to have a master's degree to be an
administrator so that's twenty four
hundred
and then the stipend which the stipend
hasn't changed for over 10 years
the stipend for our administration let
me back up that's not true
the stipend for our principles hasn't
changed for over 10 years we actually
did change some of the smaller assistant
principal ones
a few years ago but
then you would add that stipend so if
you were a middle school principal and
whatever the stipend is
ten thousand dollars twelve thousand
dollars ten thousand dollars
you'd have that added to that so you'd
go from forty
to fifty eight or sixty thousand sixty
two thousand somewhere in that ballpark
uh from being a teacher to taking on the
responsibility of being the principal of
a middle school
but again the biggest piece of that is
or a big piece of that not the biggest
piece but a big piece of that is simply
that you're going to work two more
months
and you have to be compensated for those
two months
so that's that's how the the salaries
are calculated
and that's how the uh twenty four
hundred dollars is is figured in there
a high school principal is actually uh
you know the highest uh high school
principal is
a lot after you know after four o'clock
time put in being a high school
principal uh you know you have the
graduation components and guaranteeing
that everyone meets those requirements
etc
so the stipend for a high school
principal is twenty thousand
fifty dollars um for central office
administrator is sixteen
thousand dollars okay if you're the
assistant superintendent i think you get
fifteen hundred dollars
for wearing that cap okay um
and again those are all published by the
way on our website they're all
they're all sitting there
but uh again thank you thank you for the
opportunity to
clear that up thank you sir
uh i apologize for the misinformation
that i give you
uh maybe i did my math wrong but you
totally missed the point sir
the point is that the central office is
making a lot more than what our regular
teachers is
that's my point what two hundred
thousand dollar difference i understand
that's a lot of money
but what i'm talking about is the people
that's in the central offices making
overwhelming money to do the job they're
doing
and us and i know and i'm going to refer
back to the coal mines because that's
what i know
if a coal miner gets these bachelor's
degree or whatever he
gets he don't get extra money for it and
guess what
he can be called out at any time during
the night and he works
seven days a week most of the time if
you're a superintendent
or if you're an assistant superintendent
or if you're a performance on the
section
and you don't get no extra pay
so your football games and stuff like
that i don't think you'll be getting
paid for them that's part of your job
that's just my opinion
you're hard to do a job do the job
whatever the pay is that you agreed to
work for that's what you should get
shouldn't be getting extra bonuses on
top of that
that's what i'm saying now back to the
transgender thing
last time we had a board meeting i was
here and i asked you to pass a
resolution if you want to take care of
this county pass a resolution
that the everybody will use the
bathrooms in the school by the gender
that's on their birth certificate
that ends it all right there it's simple
enough to look down and see whether
you're a boy or whether
you're a girl and it says right on your
birth certificate where you're a boy or
whether you're a girl
pass that in our county be our hero
and let it go throughout the whole state
thank you
all right okay i'm sorry i'm sorry
midnight jennifer fletcher i live on
moccasin
i homeschool my daughter but i don't
know what tomorrow brings
so i can't say that she wouldn't end up
in the public school
but i just wanted to comment
teachers work 12 months
you know they use the summer to plan
their next school year
teachers work after four o'clock
teachers work
more than anybody i know that's all i've
got
all right so anyone else that has a
comment
on our 21 22 budget and our tax rate
all right my name is larry hughes i'll
live here in rosa county in glen hall
subdivision i guess that's district 1.
tonight the question is trust
this trust of you you have to be
we have to trust you to follow god's
guidance
and man i mean i heard
that the school budget the board said
that i heard a thousand dollars
how many people works at the central
office
you know you don't have to answer that i
ask you now say this is what i'm
trusting you to ask
see i don't know all the numbers that we
need to know to make
a decision on these budgets but it's
your job
we trust you to do that it's your legal
obligation
your fiduciary for us
you're supposed to represent us with
honesty
and integrity and do something do it
right
i don't know what the school budget is
made i don't know what you need
i do know if you're nine hundred
thousand dollars in the central office
i'm guessing there's 10 or 12 people in
the office or less
that's 90 000. if you got 10 people with
90 000 i don't know how many people
90 000 per person there seems to be a
little high
if you're saying thirty thousand dollars
per teacher
explain that i don't understand that you
have a responsibility you have a legal
and a moral and godly obligation to see
these budgets
to see the line items to make the
decision that you should be
and if they're wrong they're wrong
they're right they're right
make the decision look at the budget you
know
that's your position thank you
[Applause]
all right anyone else
have a comment on our on air budget
anyone out in the
lobby anyone else out there
right let's see back home
okay all right seeing none we'll close
their
uh public comments on our public hearing
on our budget
so alonso if you have any information or
anything more
you want to discuss with it
yeah well okay before you speak alonzo
we're going to take a five-minute break
that's all right steve asked for a
five-minute break
thank you we'll be right back
perfectly all right everybody agrees
with you
oh
okay everybody back everybody's okay
all right alonzo
okay everyone's back we'll come back
into session
we've closed our public hearing on the
budget
and at this time we'll turn it over to
mr lester the county administrator if he
has any more comments on
our budget and the our needs
thank you madam chair i'd like to first
start off and
read the resolution and then i'll take
questions from the board
concerning the budget
can we close the door because i can't
hear you
yeah yes ma'am thank you
first i'd like to read the resolution to
approve the budget as amended
as appropriate funds for the russell
county and the russell county school
division for the
fiscal year beginning july the 1st 2021
and ending june 30
2022 whereas the budget and finance
committee has submitted to the russell
county board of supervisors a proposed
annual
proposed annual budget for the county
for the fiscal years beginning july the
1st
2021 and ending june 30th 2022
which has been reviewed by the board of
supervisors
whereas it is necessary to adopt the
said budget as appropriate
sufficient funds to cover the
requirements included herein
of course first whereas the board of
supervisors and
exercises independent judgment in
concert with the ross county school
board
has considered the school's annual
operating budget and
whereas after consideration of
availability of funds
approval of the russ county school board
fiscal year 2021-2022
educational budget is based upon funding
from the
federal government in the amount of 14
million 103 thousand
nine hundred thirty dollars and sixty
four cents
from the state of virginia in the amount
of thirty one million three hundred
thirty four thousand
six hundred and ninety three dollars
from local appropriations in the amount
of nine million
one hundred and one thousand three
hundred seventeen
and other local revenues in the amount
of seven hundred fifty three thousand
five hundred fifty four dollars be it
therefore
resolve that the annual budget in the
sum of
one one million nine hundred one
thousand eight hundred and eighty three
dollars for fiscal years 2021
2022 b and is hereby approved
for the operation of food service
programs authorized and approved by the
ross county
school board subject and continued to
the availability of funds
bs still further resolved that 199
million 101
317 appropriated above
the general fund for education includes
8 million 24 781
for the local contribution to the school
division in support
of the school operation budget be it
still
further resolve an annual appropriation
in the sum of one million
seventy six thousand five thirty six for
the physical years twenty twenty one
twenty two and twenty twenty twenty two
be
in is hereby made for the school debt
for a total amount of 9 million 101
317 dollars appropriated for the
russell county school division subject
to
and continue to bomb the availability of
funds
now therefore be it resolved by the the
brusso county board of supervisors the
seventh day of june
yeah 17 says june sorry
though it'll be a correction 17th of
june
2021 that the fiscal year 2021-2022
annual budget of the russell county
school division for the school
operations in amount of 57 million 195
377
64 be and is hereby approved subject to
and continues on availability of funds
as indicated in the preamble here too
i will take questions on on one of the
things also in the budget that i
mentioned
on the county side of course these are
the
as the school breaks down these
classifications these are the breakdowns
functions of the
of the governing board supervisors
general
administration judicial administration
public safety
environmental control general services
health and welfare
education parks recreation culture
community development non-departmental
capital outlay and transfer funds and
our debt service
for a total of 26 million 369 815
with that being said i would like to
take questions from the board
supervisors
anyone have a comment i don't have any
comments i'm ready to make a motion
though
any feather anyone else with discussions
any discussions if i see no
hearing if i haven't requested no uh
questions
uh then i asked for motion and approval
for the russo county 20
fy 2021-22 fiscal year budget
for the county wide rosa county board of
supervisors and ross county school board
i have a motion that i want to make with
respect to the budget and i have a
question
may i may i do a question first
or you want to wait for a motion we'll
do discussion
okay um i
may have heard some hearsay but
there's some things going on in the
scott county area
with their schools and their supervisors
and was that just on the news today
because i haven't got all the
information
does anybody know dr brown or mr lester
miss was i've deferred to dr brown on
that there was communication i asked
that before and i apologize
county and i can read that uh
this was sent to the other
superintendents in region seven
and it says i hope you're doing well our
board of supervisors has decided not to
pay their share
of the compensation supplement for the
2021-2022 school year
that amount was 238 thousand nine
hundred thirty-five dollars
the amount we would have received from
the state
is one million nineteen thousand two
hundred seventy nine dollars
if the county had paid their match in
total our budget
uh has lost one million two hundred
fifty eight thousand
two hundred fourteen dollars and will be
unable to give the five percent pay
increase
thank you uh i serve on a workforce
development board with a supervisor in
scott county
and i tried to reach out to him and i
could not get all that information
and i appreciate you bringing that
tonight
okay i'm ready to make my motion now
yes i have i have a motion i want to
make with respect to this
to the school board budget and i'm a
hand have a handout here
basically let me sort of summarize what
this says
i'm just proposing that we fund the
school
board at our required local match
plus the debt payment and what that does
to the total
it reduces the total amount the 9
million 101
317 reduces it down
by an amount of 236 922
the logic being that over the past
five or six years we've gotten at the
very least
right out of a half million dollars back
in in reversion money
so this is not any kind of cut
it's not a death blow as
apparently scott county is talking about
the board
is doing what is required by the state
and by our commitments to the debt the
state requires the
local match local minimum match
we've committed on the debt on some
projects so
i feel like we're obligated to do that
but this additional 236 thousand dollars
into budget over that
i think we need to hold it back and just
put it in the general fund
as a part of this motion i also want to
that on page three of the resolution
there's a clause in here
it says be it still further resolved
that the annual contributions that are
hereby appropriated shall be distributed
on a monthly basis with the amount
distributed not to exceed one-twelfth of
the total appropriation unless
otherwise agreed to then there's a
sentence that said
contributions to the russell county
school division and the russell county
department of social services are exempt
from that
limitation i'm proposing in this motion
that we strike
that sentence
and which would put everybody on the
monthly
appropriation and then this next
sentence is in addition the county
administrator
may require written reports on how
previous allocations were
or was spent for any further
disbursement made
and i'm proposing that we
replace that may with shall this is the
only way that i can see
if we can actually get down to what a
real budget is like
and i'm going to here's here's a copy of
my hand
sketch notes that i want all the board
members alonzo if you want one of these
i know
okay
just a second
my motion is basically to revise the
resolution
as per the handout that i gave you and
that
gives the school if that money goes back
to the general fund
then it it'll really kind of be like a
contingency fund if the school needs it
they can work it out with lonzo
and if it's a legitimate cost you can
bring it before the board and the board
votes on it to prove it then we're good
to go with it
so you all may want a minute to digest
all this
i was taking it
yes
dr brown what would
that 200 000 possibly do to the
five percent raise that's proposed
so with that being said the board of
supervisors
did not offer their share which was 283
thousand dollars
as i described earlier
of their part of the five percent pay
raise so we're absorbing
finding ways we have cut positions as
far as not feeling those retirees
and people leaving we're trying our best
to
not feel those positions if at all
possible so far
were about seven positions that we've
been able to
absorb and we're going to try to do more
in addition to that i spoke to the
non-soq-funded positions
again that's a local expense at a
hundred percent
so what does that mean a five percent
pay raise for russell county public
schools is 1.425 million
total regardless of where it comes from
the state of virginia is giving russell
county nine hundred eight thousand
dollars for their part
of the five percent pay raise so
we have been working at the board to
absorb
five hundred seventeen thousand dollars
just to give the five percent pay raise
in addition to that as i shared earlier
you have the minimum wage increase
that is over two hundred thousand
dollars that we did not ask for
from the board of supervisors well we
asked for it in a budget of need
but we've been told plan for level
funding at best
and that's what we've done so we're
actually absorbing
three quarters of a million dollars this
year if the board of supervisors level
funds
if we're trying to find another 236
thousand dollars we're looking at a
million dollars
and my feeling at this point in time
is that we're not going to be able to
find that with that being the case we
will have to return the 908 thousand
dollars
that the state has for us for the
compensation supplement
so like scott county we would have to
return
the state share the five percent pay
raise because we can't give the five
percent pay raise
okay i still hold
my motion i think that's nothing short
of blackmail
and what i what i what i see it
is that what that said is that money
will be held in the general fund
and if you need it you are welcome to
come back and ask for it
if you you know historically we've got
half a million dollars back every year
if in fact you need that money it's
allocated on a 12
monthly basis one twelfth every month
right
alonzo okay
it comes down that you need that money
you go to lonzo
to me that's a legitimate excuse you
know that's a legit
a legitimate reason to reallocate that
money
but uh you know i stand by my motion
well i've got a i've got a comment too i
mean if you've got somebody making a
hundred thousand
and somebody making 30 and they get a
five percent increase
all the money's going to the one that's
making a hundred thousand dollars
i mean is there ever going to be a time
that we look at
if you can't live on a hundred thousand
dollars somebody's got some serious
issues
but i mean if you if you got somebody
making 30
and you can't freeze the pay of those
employees to you can ever catch up
uh to get these other employees
justified i
i just don't i just don't understand it
i mean you got awful good
educators and good math teachers maybe
you ought to bring them to the table and
let them figure this thing out because
uh it just don't add up you're never
gonna catch up
never gonna make it right with the
people on the lower end scale
and we're never gonna make a dent in it
as long as we keep on this track
uh i've also got a question there uh
without this 236 000
uh is that going to do away with 800
or the 900 some thousand at the
beginning each month
if he was to come back and get it it
wouldn't
you have to have it up front you can't
wait 12 months later correct
he's asking your question katie
i'm not the bad guy here i'm i'm just
delivering the information
um i'm i'm pretty sure and i'll have to
check on this mr breeding
but i'm pretty sure that money has to be
dedicated in the budget for the schools
it can't be a thing of here it is if you
need it type thing because that's not
guaranteed
we can't create a budget legally unless
the money is there
the money has to be guaranteed to be
there for the budget
and as far as the 12-month thing goes i
can explain
why that was in there originally and
that's because
we have disproportionate payroll when we
look at summer pay for our employees as
i shared our teachers
are actually again 10 month contract
folks
and we save money and we pay them over
the summer
if they want that some choose it some
don't so with that being said and with
payroll being 80 to 85
of our budget it's nearly impossible for
us to have a clean
112 every month because we don't know
how many people this particular year
will want us to
save money every month so they can have
a july and august paycheck
some may say i'll do that on my own
others want us to do it
so that's why that was in there
originally but to answer your question
mr ray yes
you are exactly right
you cannot adjust one of your other line
items
is who knows where that 236 thousand
dollars was allocated
that's true but again right now we're
trying to find seven hundred
fifty thousand dollars to cover a
required minimum wage increase
and a hopeful increase of 5 percent for
our employees
so if we're going to
to also be looking for another
again quarter million dollars basically
you know that's that's a total of a
million dollars
so we are looking at level funding
but we're looking at a million dollars
worth of reduction
so again that's that's something that
again i'll talk to
our director of finance about that but
but my right now my perception is that
it's going to be very very very unlikely
that we're going to be able to
do a five percent pay increase if we're
trying to dig up
a million dollars and again
we're taking money from operations we're
reducing staffing and so forth
in order to cover what we're looking at
now i mean
five years ago the board of supervisors
gave us 9.7 million the year after that
9.4 million
the last two years 9.1 million
well that's six hundred thousand dollars
and it came out of debt load i
understand
that's six hundred thousand dollars that
we could have used toward
leaving it in there and going to a raise
above and beyond
uh that amount of money six hundred
thousand dollars would have been a two
percent pay raise
above and beyond others around us so
again i i i promise you i will do
everything that i can
but but again it's a partnership in us
in us making this happen
as far as helping our teachers out
okay there's been a motion made and a
second and discussion any further
discussion
oh yes yes i'm sorry can you give us a
brief second here to look at
it we're as y'all talking we're making
sure everything is in compliance with
all the codes okay
thank you chair thank you board
do you want to elaborate on
so we have a motion on floor
second discussion any more discussion
is there anything from legal counsel
that we need to know
um maybe if i step back a little can you
hear
um i mean i guess i can answer any
questions the board might have about
the legality of any actions proposed um
yes we will
yes i mean and we discussed this a
little briefly at our last meeting and i
i think i quoted the statute that said
that you could
either appropriate the school board in
olympia or by the nine classifications
and it did the statute did allow you to
say you could do that
by a periodic basis and the only thing i
will advise the board
about written reports prior to
disbursing it i don't think that you can
withhold the money
from the school board and i assume just
from a practical standpoint that the
written reports that you're going to get
are the expenditures that they approve
is
that's how they spend their money every
month and they approve that
each month at their um board meeting and
i don't know if lonzo already gets a
copy of that or
is aware of that that would be the only
limitation i would see
um on on that one amendment well we
you know we allocate a lump sum and we
don't tell them
which line item to put it in i don't i
don't think we should
should do that you know my personal
opinion is the school board should have
taxing authority and i know that's a
whole different subject
you know but you know if they need money
they need to have the ability
to tax for it and i'll be a big
proponent of that if we could get our
legislator to go for it
so you're saying that you don't think
it's
legal to withhold the money
is that right prior to them submitting a
report
um i think you know again they're going
to approve their expenditures
every month that's what they do but if
you know i mean i don't think that part
would be enforceable you could say we
didn't get our report this month that
way we're not going to appropriate this
money to you i don't think you could do
that because you're doing it on a
periodic basis and some of that would be
that
required match that you're required to
give so i mean i don't think
that you would be able to do that part
of it
but i don't i don't see a problem in
getting that written report either just
because
there will be a financial report
approved by the school board at every
monthly meeting that they have
mr brady when you're looking at the
scenes that's on the last
and there's one key word in there in in
katy king champion it says one
in addition the account administrator
shall require written reports on how
previous allocations
was or slash were spent before keyword
before before yeah before
you see key word before any future
disbursements are made
right after spent put a period okay
so are you making a motion to amend your
emotions
well i would like to modify my motion to
include that
yes so we'll second it we'll in the
sentence after spent
period and take out strike the before
any future disbursements are made
correct okay yes sir all right
all right we've had our motion we've had
the amendment to it we've had
in a second by david so all those in
favor of the
uh amendment that steve has presented
with withholding what 236 thousand
right well it's on your sheet okay
all those in favor
and hand yeah all those opposed
all right thank you now do we have a
um motion to approve the budget
for the russell county for 21 22.
so move madam chair all right do we have
a second on that
second all right of course all right all
those in favor of proving the
uh budget as presented all in favor aye
aye those opposed all right
budget approved just standing all right
the next thing we have is
i make a statement about this
or we want to wait until the end
but in conclusion thank you madam chair
for
and and board for approving the budget
but in the good note of it
one of the good things i want to point
out for the board of supervisors
um you did not raise taxes this year
you've given the label services or above
there was no increases in any real
estate or personal property
and
i appreciate the board of supervisors
and
thank you hold your comments
thank you uh we did not raise
any taxation we deliver the same savers
as the services
so again board of supervisors this is
another year of
no no increased taxation thank you
all right next thing is any of our
citizens comments on any of the other
public concerns that was left over from
our last meeting
i do have this and i'm assuming you
meant to speak
when you signed this was speaking on the
budget mr dameron
did you want to speak anything more okay
thank you dear
katie can you you can speak and address
the board
thank you my stephen i'm from
switzerland
was talking about not being able to give
the five percent
pay increase to the teachers but you can
guarantee
minimum wage to go up
why can't we guarantee a five percent
pay increase for the teachers
if we can guarantee on one hand why
can't we guarantee on the other hand
sorry i'm sorry we can't it's a public
comment we'll
speak with you later uh mr natalie
okay mr kaiser natalie
okay thank you sir mr katz
um again i'll go back to this number
because it's been said again that uh
that we've got to put more money to the
school system for them to raise teacher
wages and then i'm sorry i'm having a
real
hard i mean i'm not a genius or anything
but i can do math
that's what i do for a living and when
we're funding
per student 500 more than the state
average
that means we're spending more money
than the average county in the state
and yet we've got the third lowest
teacher pay i'm sorry guys the money is
going somewhere
and it isn't to the teachers so we need
to
there needs to be a forensic audit or
something of the school system to find
out what's going on here
because there's no way we can be
spending the amount of money that we're
spending
and have the third lowest teacher pay
and then the excuse is
well you gotta you gotta put more money
to the school system we're already
giving more money to the school system
than every other county in the state
nearly i mean at higher than
average so the math doesn't add up
so something school board
something that you this board needs to
look into i know you've got limited
control of the school board but
i can tell you one thing if we don't get
to the bottom this is going to be head's
roll
next election for sure now
that being said i still
am asking the county to look into this
school everybody says voucher i know you
probably don't have the authority to
create a voucher
but you do have the authority to tax and
spend therefore you have the authority
to create tax credit
so i'm asking you let's look into it
appoint a committee
let's get the ball rolling we need to
have school choice
the school system you've already
allocated the money for it
they're going to have all that money i'm
hoping at the end of this year
once all these students get pulled out
of the school system that you see a big
old
hefty big old pile of money coming right
back to the county
because if you don't then they're
they're spending it faster they can get
it
on purpose that's what that tells you
because a whole bunch of students are
going to leave the school system
so you need to take the first step now
to look and see what can be done in
helping parents
have the choice financially because yeah
you can have the choice
dr brown said yeah you got the choice in
virginia virginia for the school choice
state
the choice is send your money to the
county that sends it to the school board
and don't send your kid there and then
pay for homeschool on top of that
that's your choice so give
parents the financial independence to be
able to do what's right for the children
i've got 824 signatures
here and that's within six days you give
me six more days
i'll double that number there's a ton of
people that demand this right now
and you need to step up you can be the
first county in the state you have a
unique opportunity an unprecedented
opportunity
to be the first county in the state to
fund
school choice on the county level
you do it here it will spread across the
state it'll spread across the nation
pastor dawn's right maybe this is the
first step as christians every one of
you
i believe professes to be a christian
this is your chance you could be the
difference you could be the first step
in making a difference in in this in
this county
in this state and in this nation
will you take that first step this is a
journey uh every journey starts with one
step the first step out the door let's
go
i'm asking you to do that tonight make
the first step
all right that's all that was on our
list
okay at this time we'll move on to our
constitutional officers and request
sing none right matters before the
board and at this time i'm going to be
rude and hop in front if y'all don't
care please
i would like to ask mr breeding if he
will serve with me
and we will meet with dr brown to
discuss
the budget with his the salaries for our
teachers
could you do that steve and david i'm
going to ask you to be the alternate
because i'm fixing to be a granny again
in the next few weeks and if i'm not
here not available
would you care to please sit in and help
if
you could be my alternative yes ma'am
because um as many of you know my first
grandbaby was
12 weeks early she only weighed two
pounds and so
we're uh we're with a high risk
pregnancy and
and granny's going to be out of county
that's my first priority so david if you
don't care
i will be gone granny will be down the
road
and i'll ask you two to meet with dr
brown and
let's start this for our folks for our
teachers they deserve it
i was there 39 years and they talked
about insurance
it didn't do me any good i was on my
husband's insurance policy
you know they'd say we can't give you a
raise but we're going to give you your
insurance
well that really didn't do me as a
teacher any good
because i didn't need their insurance
and i didn't get the raise
and i didn't get the insurance so we do
need to work with our folks
they are hard workers and this pandemic
has really really shown
how hard all of our folks have worked
you all not just our teachers
our social workers i work with the dscs
they've been out our sheriff's
department our rescue squad people
we've got good people in this county and
we need to back them
we need to help support them so that's
all the comments i have tim
do you have anything to say sir no ma'am
lou
i do i want to say a hearty thank you to
those who have come tonight and set
through
this arduous process and it is not
without considered deep consideration
but i cannot say no to the teachers i
cannot say no to the school board
i feel like in my heart that we need to
press forward
and there is a way forward i think and i
think that
um at this point at this juncture in
time we're talking about this
and i think it's good and healthy so i
do appreciate you
and i have your best interest at heart
but we need to move forward and make
sure that our
schools and our teachers don't lose
one dime of money so thank you
david yeah i would uh i would like
i want to talk about a motion to do this
but i'd like to also bring it up as a
recommendation first so we can
have a little bit of discussion about it
but i think each board member here needs
a
personal represent representative that
we could select
to form a committee to actually look
at the opportunity did you already have
that in emotion
did you i'm stepping on you
i'm sorry i'm sorry but i i feel like
that
you know we need we need it you know
one thing so critical in our local
community is communication
i think that we fail miserably by not
communicating things and then all of a
sudden
it flies up in somebody's face and they
have to catch up on it at the last
minute and figure it out
and they get upset so i really think
that we need a committee formed
one person per board of supervisors that
would represent this opportunity to meet
and discuss most of these issues
that we're dealing with can i comment on
here
before you make your motion us you know
after listening to what everybody said
tonight i just
feel compelled to try to set up some
sort of committee like david is talking
about
to explore the following one would be
alternatives to full alternatives to
fund
alternative education options through
the county
using non-state funds which makes them
independent
and i mean there's a lot of different
options you might look at
local money you know we'd have to make
sure it was legal there might be some
foundational money there might be some
grants available
you know i'm willing to you know talk
about anything like that
and then as an additional
thing to look at is is to look at ways
we can address
all these radical state and federal
unfunded mandates that are being dropped
in there into our labs right now
and i don't i don't know what to do i
mean
you know they hand it down to you and
say here it is it's
state law you have to do it or you can
draft your own but it has to be at least
as stringent or more stringent than what
we've given you
you know and and you put boards like our
school board in a position
that you know they either vote for it
and uh
i've heard them say i have to resign
well it's not that they have to resign
because i ask katie about that it's just
if they vote against something that's a
state
law they open their cells up to a
personal lawsuit
for discrimination which their insurance
company will not
you know cover them because it's
their win against the state law so
the base of our problem is federal and
state government
and i'm going to tell you right now if
you don't get out there and vote next
time
and and look at the candidates and
and look what they're you know you have
to you're going to pick a candidate
that is in line with your sense
of morality and your sense of ethics and
supports
things that you support so go out there
and look at both
of them and we have got to get people
out to vote
because i'm telling you the future of
virginia
rests on november and if november
doesn't
you know go one way then
you know i'm looking for property in
tennessee
david if you want to mention no i'll
i'll amend that motion to include
these items that steve spoke about
i'll second that motion
discussion okay um
can we can we send this through the
attorney first
sure yeah okay
but since it's a committee i don't you
know other
a committee doesn't have any really
standing to do all they can do is make a
recommendation
illegal
i i don't think you'll i mean again and
my understanding would be this would be
an
unpaid committee there'd be no
compensation from the board volunteer
that
um i mean i think i mean i guess a
logistical issue would be like what how
are they going to serve is
one representative going to come and
give a report each month to the board or
what do you envision there
i don't know if you report each month to
the board or not they
they just need to get together and
discuss some options and then when
they're ready to report
who knows it may take three or four
months to to filter through all this
nonsense that we're looking at you know
right now
on one of them in alternatives it may
take three or four months
you know to even develop a list of
alternatives i think it's
just we've got somebody said we've got
to
at least take the first step and this is
all i can come up with to take a first
step right now
next next board meeting i may have some
other idiotic idea you know
but we've got to do something you know i
just i just
feel like we're just we're sitting here
spinning our wheels
until we make some sort of effort and we
may find after a month or two that this
is not the approach
we need to take but maybe this group
could tell us what
how we need to go with it and i don't
have a problem with that at all
but you know when i want to choose
my representative then i need guidelines
so who's going to decide the guidelines
and how is that going to be rolled out
so that it is fair and equitable
do you have a sense of that we just put
a committee together and they just come
back with ideas
i think that's exactly what it is that's
what you want somebody that you have
some confidence
in who has her heart in the right place
and wants to represent
you know the county on this committee
and let them you know there's there's
nothing edged in stone on this
this is new ground as far as i'm
concerned i don't know if anybody's ever
done this before to
you know figure out ways to you know
combat these
crazy radical mandates that we're seeing
or
you know to figure out some sort of
funding other funding option you know
and we may find out you know after they
come back with it it's nothing
the county can do or the local
government can do but maybe they'll come
up with a foundation that might want to
support something like this
who knows but we got to do something
katie any other legal advice i don't see
a problem as long as you know they don't
have any kind of specific authority or
or they're not paid i mean they're an
advisory committee and i think they
really do that
because really there's no bylaws farm
there's not paid
that type of thing and your bylaws allow
for you to appoint advisors through
committees
if and when recommendations are made to
the board they can take it or leave it
yep yes okay is there any other comments
on this motion
i like to say that there's a lot of
misinformation like someone
spoke you get a lot of men
misinformation on the guy said he
got misinformation and communication has
been a problem i say
lack of communication creates a lot of
problems we've had
that if we can do committees or whatever
we have several problems here and we're
going we need to get down to it
it's not going to be overnight like
someone said we need to get started
and see where we go and
if we just sit around doing nothing to
our thumbs
then we're not going to get any more so
let's do decide to move
forward in a smart
progressive manner in other words when i
say progress i don't mean sit still
move forward try to get something done
try to find out
if this is misinformation or if this is
true information or whatever
because um i've been overwhelmed with
phone calls and complaints and things
like that
and i couldn't answer all those
questions i cannot solve those problems
but i would like to but i can't do it by
just sitting still let's
we're going to get some things going
that we haven't had going
i i would i would expect this committee
to you know work with other groups say
like the ministerial associations
in russell county and uh
mountain movers or whoever you know but
they need
we need to get people on there that want
to see some results and try to get
well i agree with thor's you know we've
got to do something we've got to get a
start
somewhere one of the things i'd like to
say is to
say if i selected mr dameron to be my
representative
and i could meet at the community center
in swords creek
and you could round up lynn and others
and you know to meet there so we could
have discussion
we could have dialogue we could look at
options and opportunities and
ways that we can uh generate more
lobbying
in our direction than in opposition i
think that's what this
is i think it's just to get out there in
your districts and have these
conversations with the people not
expecting them to come to our meeting we
need to go to them
nate how many signatures did you have on
this
824 so yeah there's 824 people are
interested right now
all right any other any other discussion
on this
all right we have emotion on the floor
in a second we've had discussion
all those in favor of developing a
committee to look at
solutions for our schools all right
anyone opposed okay
steve any other comments or any other
comment
and carl mr i'm mad and chair i got one
more thing i was approached there
during the break from some gentleman
that
and this is actually goes to dr brown i
guess
uh one of them had asked me you know in
our board of supervisors meetings and
our school board meetings
we actually say the prayer and we do the
pledge of allegiance
and is there a time
at our schools at all of our schools for
this opportunity
for our kids to have the pledge
allegiance and prayer
excuse me pleasure of allegiance uh and
and a moment of silence
to where each individual can have their
own opportunity
if they choose to to pray if they want
say whatever they want
the same breath it can impose on someone
else who maybe has a different belief
right and so forth so to answer your
question we can do
the pledge of allegiance and and
definitely a moment of silence where
that person has the opportunity
to do as they so choose with that thank
you for the answer
doctor are you are you saying that's the
only permissible
thing that they got to do in the moments
of silence but we have things
why are we imposing if we you know back
when i was in school
they prayed over the pa system you had a
minister or someone to pray over the pa
system
sure sure sure when i went to school i
know that's a thing in the past but
you take the prayer out you take the
bible out and now
you can come on with quite a few immoral
things i can i'll speak to that as being
a principal
we did every morning and we let we let
each classroom take turns and the
children all loved that
and it was so precious when you know the
little first graders had come up there
to say the pledge
it was you got some good interpretation
of words but it was okay it was
wonderful
but yeah they do every morning on the pa
system they have the pledge
and then they have a moment of silence
and if you want to have your moment of
silence you bow your head you
have it and then if i don't want to i
mean you know
we have them that way they they just
stand there and
they don't do anything but they do it is
allowed and they do have it every day at
school
yeah they still do it yep they they have
the pledge and it's usually first thing
and then they have like morning
announcements and
that kind of thing so they can do well
he has changed
of course i'm i'm probably the oldest
one on the board here
but when i was in elementary school in
high school
first year of high school they actually
had a minister to pray over the pa
system and you referenced that prayer
yeah we they still do that they still
let the children do it
and all the classrooms take turns and
the kids love it because it
gets to be their turn to do it all right
anyone else any other discussions any
other matters
all right at this
at this time we have a motion for
adjournment and our next meeting will be
july the 12th
because of the fourth of july we're
pushing it back
one one week because of celebration so
do i have a motion for adjournment
so move david do we have a second second