Pocahontas Board of Education to Face Tough 2017-2018 Budget Decisions

Pocahontas School Superintendent Terrence Beam asked the Board of Education at their December 19^th Meeting to schedule their first budget preparation work session before January 15^th because there will be tough decisions to be made in creating the 2017-2018 budget.  Beam offered the following as just one example of the many looming budget problems that need to be discussed.

“We’re getting nothing but bad news about our Forestry Moneys” said Beam. “How we design our budget without that money in there –we’ve been able to put that money in our budget the last several years, $375,000; $380,000; and up, and we’re not going to be able to put that in our budget this year. So we got to find a way to cut our budget back $380,000 or $390,000. That’s going to be hard to do. So we need to have a lot of discussion. I don’t expect to solve this in one meeting.”

The Board of Education, led by Board Vice President Jessica Hefner since its President, Emery Grimes was unable to attend this meeting, discussed possibly scheduling this Work Session for January 12^th at the Green Bank Observatory if it is available that day. Beam told the Board Members that the meeting could take up the whole day.

Superintendent Beam also told the Board about an idea he picked up at a School Superintendent’s meeting where each Board of Education member would be designated to concentrate on an area of expertise within the School system. He gave a couple of possible examples:  Board Member Steve Tritapoe might concentrate on technology since that is one of his interests, while Board Member Joe Walker might concentrate on Maintenance since he is very knowledgeable in that area. The Board Members present seemed interested in this proposal.

Beam also talked about the enthusiasm displayed at a recent collaboration meeting of English Language Arts (ELA) teachers from all of the schools, and feels that such cooperation by ELA teachers from all grade levels may be a great thing since ELA has been a weak area for the County Schools.

The Board approved payments to venders, which included a payment to Northern Greenbrier Sprinklers of over $6000.00 for an emergency repair to the sprinkler system at the Green Bank Elementary-Middle School. It was pointed out that for a while, that school had to provide a hallway fire watch while the sprinkler system was down. There were also utility payments to Frontier for phone, communication and fiber lines, Mon Power for electricity and Woodford Oil for fuel, which, combined,  totaled in excess of $81,000.

The Board also approved payment of the December 8^th payroll totaling $213,395.38, approved two small grants from the Snowshoe Foundation– $500.00 for the Pocahontas Robotics Project and $1000.00 for the Green Bank School’s Youth Amateur Radio Project.

The Board approved Dayla Lambert as a volunteer cook at Green Bank Elementary-Middle School. Superintendent Beam explained that Lambert is a college student and will work this job between semesters as part of her Community Service Hours. Beam added that Lambert does have a Food Handler’s card.

They Board also approved the following as Voluntary Archery coaches for the County Archery Team:  Jody Spencer; Rebecca Spencer; Heather Simmons; Robert Simmons; David Smith; Kristie Smith. It was noted that these are the same Archery Coaches as last year.

They approved for P. Erwin Berry to transport 23 students to the Pennsylvania Farm Show on January 12^th and 13^th. All costs for this trip are being paid for by the Pocahontas County Future Farmers of America.

The Board also approved the Personnel Agenda which can be found with this story at the Allegheny Mountain Radio Website –www.alleghenymountainradio.org.