By Burton Cole
BUTLER — Short of bus drivers, the Pendleton County School District is ready to pay current drivers $1,500 for every new driver they recruit.
Superintendent Joe Buerkley told the school board during its November meeting last week at Sharp Middle School that the district is short five drivers and is anticipating a sixth vacancy soon.
At a previous board meeting, it was noted that other staff, including Assistant Superintendent Matt Compton, have doubled up duties to keep the bus routes running.
“Our team has done a phenomenal job covering, with no impact to services,” Buerkley said. “However, if this trend continues, transportation services will be impacted.”
Buerkley told board members that his team wanted to offer the $1,500 incentive to any current bus driver who refers someone who becomes a new bus driver. The goal is to keep the money in-house rather than pay an outside head-hunter to find drivers.
The motion to offer the incentive passed unanimously.
AUDIT
An audit of district finances conducted by accountants Kelley, Galloway, Smith and Goolsby of Ashland found Pendleton Schools to be in good fiscal shape with a clean audit and no findings for recovery for the year that ended June 30.
According to the audit, which is published on the district website:
• The district began the fiscal year with $19.54 million in all funds, and ended the year with $18.05 million. The decrease primarily was because of major renovation projects to the stadium at Sharp, and to the school itself, in conjunction with an increase in state and federal funding provided specifically for those projects.
• The general fund recorded $23.11 million in revenues, primarily from state funding, and property, utilities and motor vehicle taxes. The district spent $21.96 million during the fiscal year.
• The district owns $55.28 million in total assets, including cash, buildings and materials, an increase of about $5 million largely due to renovations. The liabilities of $27.63 million is down about $8 million.
• The only note auditors made as a problem was, “We noted an instance in which office supplies for high school personnel were purchased with school activity funds” when the purchase should have been made with district funds. The situation was considered “very minor” and noted as an oversight. Auditors recommended that the district provide training to high school personnel “to ensure that operational expenses are not purchased from school activity funds.”
Aside from that, no “difficulties” or “findings” were discovered during the audit.
OTHER BUSINESS
• Under the “Great News” portion of the meeting agenda, the board recognized the efforts of Klaber Wolfe and Sam Hodge of Pendleton County High School, and Taylor Flannigan of Sharp Middle as cross country team members who qualified for state.
• The board unanimously agreed with Buerkley’ recommendation to go with the first of three options for next school year’s calendar, which essentially mimics the current school year calendar.
Students will return to school Aug. 13; fall break will be Oct. 6 to 10, with the preceding Friday, Oct. 3, also a day off for the Kentucky Wool Festival; spring break will be April 6 to 10; and students’ last day will be May 20. With the usual Christmas break, that schedule ensures at least one day off every month.
Option 2 would have added a day off on April 3, which would have bumped the last day to May 21. Option 3 would have started school on Aug. 6 and ended classes May 12.
• At Buerkley’s recommendations, the board appointed member Derek Brown and community leaders Walt Hornbeck, Tyler Heilman and Jeff Aulick to the Local Planning Committee.
The 20-member committee also includes four building administrators, the district facilities director, a district staff member, a representative of the building and zoning department, four parents, four teachers and the superintendent.
The Local Planning Committee will review the district facility plan.
• Pendleton County Education Association President Shonda Justus reviewed activities for American Education Week, which was last week.
Monday was the kickoff day; Tuesday was Family Day, inviting parents into the classrooms; Wednesday saluted education support professionals; Thursday was Be an Educator for a Day, giving community leaders and others the opportunity to teach classes; and Friday was the day to honor substitute teachers.