Pocahontas Board of Education Passes FY2019-2020 Budget

At their April 29^th meeting, the Pocahontas County Board of Education passed its budget for the coming fiscal year ending on June 30, 2020. They had been working diligently this spring to come up with this balanced budget. There are three parts to the budget; the General Current Expense Fund; the Special Revenue Fund and the Capital Projects Fund. The main fund, the General Fund anticipates $13,225,620 in Revenues and anticipates the same amount in expenses. The Special Revenue Fund is also balanced between revenues and expenses at $2,642.560. The Capital Projects fund is estimated to have $400.000 in revenues and expenses.

Sherry Radcliff, the school system’s Treasurer said that to some degree, there figures are still estimates since although the budget has to be done and submitted to the State at this time, they still have not received all the financial assistance amounts from the State and Federal Governments and unexpected expenses will undoubtedly occur.

A copy of the 2019-2020 passed budget can be found here: 2019-2020 BOE Budget

Jee Seymour came before the Board as a Delegate to complain that money being saved by eliminating some teacher positions should be used to make the Art Teacher position at the school a full-time position instead of the half-time position it is now. She was advised to contact the School Superintendent about why that was not being done.

Samara Mann, an ELA Teacher at PCHS also addressed the Board, being upset that the agenda for this meeting calls for abolishing the policy for paying teachers an annual supplement for holding National Board Certification. Mr. Beam explained that they are not removing that supplement, only removing a duplicate policy.

In other actions at this Board Meeting:

• School Superintendent Terrence Beam congratulated the winners of the Pocahontas County 2019 Regional Social Studies Fair. The list of winners can also be found on our website with this story
• Middle School students Andrea Alderman and Jersey Simmons came before the board to ask their opinion about if naps should be scheduled during the school day for Middle and High School Students, as part of their school debate preparation. All the Board Members gave a thumbs down on that idea.
• Jared Liptrap gave an update on upcoming events and sports results at PCHS
• John McCuskey, the WV State Auditor briefed the Board on their possibly using the website WVCheckbook.gov to keep their finances online, which would save them money they pay to have the annual audit done. He also said citizens can go on that website to see where their tax money is being spent.
• Erwin Berry, the Agriculture Teacher at PCHS talked about that program and about the repairs needed at their greenhouse and shop, including a reliable heating system.
• Randy Jones from OWPR Architects gave an update on the status of the Major Improvement Project at PCHS. He said they are currently working on getting the new water tower installed, and hope to have it done by the end of July, the fire alarm installation will be complete later this week and they are having vender delivery problems with the windows and doors.
• The Board placed the revised Athletic Policy on 30 day comment and abolished two policies as well as the flexible Scheduling procedure at PCHS.
• They approved submitting waiver requests to the State Board of education to allow them to use the math courses they developed here rather then the State approved Math Courses, and a waiver to offer a non-state sanctioned course -Financial Algebra.
• They approved 4 math textbooks
• They approved a Service and Professional Personal list which, along with the agenda for this meeting, can be linked to here: 4-29-19 BOE Actual Agenda
• They ended the meeting with a closed session to discuss the annual Performance Evaluation of School Superintendent Beam and then approved it in open session