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Photo by Jessa Pease.
Board members prepare for meeting.
Hoover Board of Education members Cooper (left) and Kelley go over information prior to the meeting.
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Photo by Jessa Pease.
Retirees honored at board of education meeting.
Fifty-two retirees within Hoover City Schools were given awards of appreciation for their service.
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Photo by Jessa Pease.
Retirees honored at board of educaiton meeting.
Hoover Board of Education voted to support a new amendment that will be voted on at the Nov. 4 election.
At the board’s Oct. 6 meeting, Superintendent Andy Craig read a resolution to support amendment four, which board member Kelley explained would require legislature to have a two-thirds vote before they mandate any cost more than $50,000 to Hoover City Schools.
“This means our tax dollars and our budget — they can’t do something in Montgomery and tell us we must do it here and then require us to pay for it,” Kelley said. “If they require a code, then they have to fund it, so I think this is a good thing.”
The board voted unanimously to approve this resolution.
Also at the meeting, Green Valley resident Trisha Powell Crain addressed the board with a question she said she had originally asked Craig at the June board of education meeting.
She referenced a reduction in force request that Craig brought before the board, and at that time she asked him how much money would be saved by illuminating those jobs. Craig had responded that he didn’t know off the top of his head, but that the number could be calculated.
Crain then referenced a series of emails she sent to board members Derrick Murphy and Donna Frazier on Aug. 6 and Aug. 11 that asked for that information. Although the board members responded, Crain said she wasn’t given the calculated amount of savings. She did not reference any other attempt to collect that information previous to last night.
“Last night, I wrote to Mr. Murphy and Mrs. Frazier… Can someone please tell me why the superintendent has been unable to produce these numbers?” Crain said. “Please, please, please do not make me ask this question and read each of your emails from the podium tomorrow night. Is Mr. Craig simply incompetent or was there no base for the RIF (reduction in force) in the first place?”
Crain said that the evasiveness in the past four months looked suspicious as though there were no savings from the reduction in force. Board member Cooper responded to Crain first.
“You pride yourself in a tremendous amount of detailed information related to the budgets and everything else,” Cooper said. “You are here at every board meeting — you record it. You know who were RIFed. You know their salary schedule.”
Crain interrupted Cooper to tell him that she did not know the salary schedule particular to those people. Cooper said he agreed that it was the responsibility of the board to provide her with that information, but he thought it was rhetorical for her to ask a question that she could find the answer to.
“In the scheme of things, when we talk about savings relative to $160 and $180 million dollars, [the amount saved] is probably not that significant,” Cooper said. “I am not discounting anything. We should respond to you, I agree, but I wouldn’t go so far as to say it’s a matter of distrust because somebody won’t give you something that you know the answer to already.”
Crain argued that she did not know the answer.
Craig said he asked the finance department to compute the amount of money saved from letting those nine employees go in June, and it is his understanding that they are working on that number to have for Crain soon.
The board of education also:
- Presented 52 retirees of Hoover City Schools with awards of appreciation and recognition.
- Approved the monthly financial statement.
- Approved the September payroll, $7,047,184.04.
- Approved cash disbursements of $5,746,345.32.
- Approved the annual five-year capital plan that includes tentative expenditures within Hoover City Schools.
- Approved a new curriculum for English, language arts and math in Hoover City Schools. This new curriculum is aligned with the new standards of college and career readiness.
- Announced that enrollment numbers were up about six students from last year.
The next board of education meeting will be Nov. 3 at 5:30 p.m. in the Farr Administration Building.
