10 July 2008

Financial matters occupied most of the time at the hour-long July meeting of the McNairy County school board, during which a number of substantive issues were discussed at considerable length.  You may want to take notes.

The first ten minutes of the meeting were devoted to discussion of a number of recommendations from Vaughn and Associates for the improvement of the buildings and facilities of the McNairy County school system, the need for which has been regularly discussed at recent board meetings.

Board Chairman Frank Lacey introduced the subject, which was not on the agenda. “We have a memorandum in front of us from Vaughn and Associates, and if you don’t mind I’m going to read over this, and then Mr. Vaughn is here, if we have any questions or anything for him, we can do it.  Following are notes of our meeting in the office yesterday regarding the direction given to Vaughn and Associates for a variety of potential design issues.” 

“The first one is the new middle school, grades five through eight on a site at the fairgrounds near McNairy Central.  Move Selmer Elementary to the existing middle school.  Renovate the existing Selmer Elementary to accommodate central offices for the board of education.

“Item two, Adamsville High campus.  Add a multi-purpose gym/auditorium building and approximately six class rooms.  The multi-purpose building is for P.E., ROTC, music programs and it should include an open floor area to accommodate a full-sized high school basketball court.  No additional floor area for bleacher seating.  Two locker rooms.  One large office.  One large storage room for the ROTC program, and public toilet rooms.  Or, move seventh and eighth grades to Adamsville Elementary campus, and add ten through twelve classroom expansions, expand the cafeteria, library and other spaces needed to accommodate the additional grades, or build a new K-4 campus on a site to be selected.

“Item three is, where is the best location for adding four new class rooms at Ramer.

“Item four is add a storage room, or rooms, and possibly an office for the administration office area at Bethel Springs.

“Item five, McNairy Central High School, add a multi-purpose gym/auditorium building.  The multi-purpose building is for P.E., ROTC, music programs and it should include an open floor area to accommodate a full-sized high school basketball court. No additional floor area for bleacher seating.  Two locker rooms.  One large office.  One large storage room for the ROTC program, and public toilet rooms.”

Lacey concluded by asking, “Mr. Vaughn, do you have any additions, or things you’d like to add to—”

“I have no additions,” Jeff Vaughn replied.  “If there are any comments by the board, or clarifications or adjustments need to be made otherwise, or discussion about anything, I’d be glad to listen, and take direction otherwise.”

Lacey asked if Vaughn had a time frame for proceeding, and Vaughn responded, “We can start immediately.”

Vaughn clarified his remark by saying, “We’ll have to gather information on the existing conditions of these campuses that we’re going to be doing studies for, but we can start this work immediately,” later adding, “Understand, the plan drawing at this point has nothing to do with drawings for construction.  It’s simply generating design concepts for addressing these various issues.”

“Cost estimates,” suggested technology coordinator Terry Burns, who serves as recorder at the school board’s meetings.

“Well, and subsequent cost estimates,” Vaughn added.  “But we’ve got to have a general plan, a concept, to provide a solution to the issues that are being addressed here, or asked for here, so that contractor or construction engineer can apply some numbers to them.”

“So, do you think we could—” Lacey began, before starting over.  “How much time is needed to get, we’re at a point where we can look at something and maybe, you know, three and four, or one and two, or you know just some combination in there, and kind of get some direction on what we’re going to do?”

“It will probably take at least two months for us to build, information gathered, draw whatever it is we need to do,” Vaughn replied.  “It’s—” 

“By the first of October, then,” Lacey interrupted, “by the first of October then we should be able—”

“I think so,” Vaughn replied, returning the favor.

“I think, basically, let me interject that my point was,” Education Director Charlie Miskelly said, attempting to provide some background.  “We had a meeting that night.  We discussed many things and came up with, you know, some ideas.  These are ideas that I thought I understood from the board.  I called Mr. Vaughn.  We sat down and had a meeting.  Even had a miscommunication, ourself.  That was my fault.  We cleared that up, and then he sent this back, and so I think, number one, is this what we discussed at that meeting that night?  Is there any additions or subtractions, or did I miscommunicate to Mr. Vaughn your intentions that night?”

“I don’t have any notes in front of me,” Johnny Blakely observed, “but these appear to be what we talked about, and the priorities that we established.”

After several minutes Lacey said “I’d like to conclude this discussion here, and then we can move on to anything else.  But, is this what we want to say tonight, to Mr. Vaughn?  ‘Please go forward.’”

“It’s fine with me,” Jean Jones said.

“It looks good,” Blakely agreed, before saying, “I’ve got a question for Mr. Vaughn, concerning maybe, item number three, where it says, I’ll read it, where it says. ‘Where is the best location for adding four new classrooms at Ramer?’  Now, what would be the criteria that you would use to determine the best location?”

“Available sites area,” Vaughn replied.  “Previously, when we looked at a proposed concept plan for installing four classrooms in that interior courtyard, questions came about, ‘Was that the best location?’   Construction manager voiced concern about the constructability of that location, being so tight in that area between the two wings of classrooms, though it could be done.  So then we said, ‘Okay, what if we take the four classrooms and put them out in what I’ll call the front yard,’ where there’s parking out in front, and maybe relocate that parking, or rotate it around to some other location, so that it is more accessible, more constructible, and there was no real direction given, or solutions, discerned that night.  So I think the question still is, ‘Where is the best location?’  Now I have been back to the site, and tried to think about, look at, where else we might put it.  And there is another possibility, or two, which I’m going to present, from the drawing concept standpoint, to the board when I come back.  And one of them is going to be locating four classrooms on, call it the left end of the school buildings, there, in the area where there’s, there’s a drive between the end of the school building and the playgrounds across that drive.  But there is a possibility that that area is constructible, or buildable.  Now, what would we have to do with, either relocating the playground, or adjust the playground and the drive through that area.  Otherwise, that’s probably what we’re going to look at.  But if we’re asking ourselves, ‘Where is the best place for four classrooms at Ramer?’ that’s just part of the variety of different alternate locations that I think are logical to give consideration to.”

“Constructibility, cost, and the asthetic quality, right?” Blakely summed up.

“Yes, sir.”

“Very good,” Blakely concluded.

“Well,” Vaughn said when there were no more questions, “I’ll just stay in touch with Mr. Miskelly in the future, about my progress.”

“We’re not setting anything in concrete tonight, are we?” Smith asked.  “This is for, to move forward with the building issues?”  Lacey agreed that was the case.

* * *

Several regular agenda items where then disposed of quickly.  The certified personnel report and the classified personnel report were accepted of without comment or question, as were the minutes of the June 12 meeting, which were approved unanimously on a motion by Jean Jones, seconded by Tony Chapman.

Various bids were also unanimously accepted. Better Source’s bid to supply paper to the schools was accepted on a motion by Chapman, seconded by Jones, and all low bids to supply the nutrition department were accepted on a motion by Blakely, also seconded by Jones.

Miskelly then explained the request from the special education department to purchase a copy machine. “They run so many copies, they just, for special education to copy all the things that they do, it’s typically been in the best interest just to purchase a copier and they would like to purchase this copier from Rayco and pay for them with their IDEA and rehab funds that they get, and so I submit that for your approval.”

Chapman made a motion to approve the purchase, which Smith seconded, and after a brief discussion the motion passed by a unanimous roll call vote.

The next item on the list of items for approval was “LEA Comprehensive Application for Special Education Services.”  Lacey explained that it was an agreement that “we enter into every year,” and it was unanimously approved on a motion by Smith, seconded by Jones.

The next item for approval was the first reading of the policy for maintaining test security, and Lacey drew the board’s attention to several changes as he thumbed through the multi-page document.  “Basically,” Miskelly then concluded, “the big change is the one in number four about, uh, we run into a problem with the lower grades, third, fourth, fifth, sixth where teachers teach those students, so we’re asking to allow those teachers to administer that test, even though they teach them sometimes more than fifty percent of their instructional day.  So that’s the big change in that policy.”  Smith moved that the first reading be approved, and his motion, seconded by Chapman, carried unanimously.

“Item 5.F.,” Lacey then read from the agenda, “adoption of a code of ethics.”  He explained that “every board of education must have one,” and Chapman made a motion that the board approve the code of ethics that had been included in the board members’ packets.

“I second that motion with a question,” Smith said.  “Are we going to form a committee to deal with issues that might arise, also?”

“That’s a good suggestion,” Lacey said.  “Let’s vote on the motion, and then we can pick up on, make a motion to form that committee.”  The motion was unanimously approved by a voice vote, then Lacey said, “Now, Mr. Smith, I would entertain a motion.”

“I make a motion,” Smith responded, “that we form a committee to deal with any ethics issues that might arise.”

“I think it’s a good idea,” Lacey repeated.

Chapman found the relevant passage in the code: “A school board may create a school district ethics committee,” and Smith observed that the code provided that the committee should consist of three members, two of whom should be members of the school board.

“All right,” Lacey said, after Jones provided a second, “We’ve got a motion by Mr. Smith to create a ethics committee to oversee, to make sure that we are following the code of ethics that we have just adopted, to consist of two board members and someone outside of the board, not necessarily in the school system.  All in favor please indicate by saying aye.”  The motion carried unanimously.

Jean Jones having twice in the earlier discussion voiced her support for Larry Smith as a member of the ethics committee, Lacey asked, “Mr. Smith, would you mind serving on behalf of the board?”  When Smith indicated his assent, Lacey asked, “Anyone else want to volunteer to serve?”

“I’ll do it,” Chapman replied.

“Mr, Chapman,” Lacey said.  “That’s who I was going to appoint anyway.  And then, do y’all have recommendations of who we could ask, outside the board?”

“Does it have to be someone outside the board?” Chapman asked.

“It needs to be someone outside of our board,” Lacey replied, before suggesting the board ask County Mayor Jai Templeton “if he has someone he’d like to recommend.”

Technology Bids

The next item engendered considerable discussion. “Item 5.G. is technology bids,” Lacey said.  “You’ve got that in your packet, there.  It looks like we’ve got a recommendation to go with CDW-G.   I’d entertain a motion to approve this.”

“Acer computers,” Larry Smith said in a “not-so-fast” tone of voice.  “We had an issue with them once before.”

“CDW-G does not—” Burns began, not responding to Smith’s comment.  “The Linux [Linux is a free computer operating system] is the ones I was looking at.  The Lenovo laptops.”

But Smith persisted. “I’m talking about the ones we that we had that we bought several years ago, and we had an issue and we— You wrote them a letter, and wrote Acer, I think, a letter, and the people we bought it from a letter, and we got no response from either one of them.  And basically they wouldn’t help us at all.  Wouldn’t do anything.”

“Yeah,” Burns acknowledged, before adding, “that’s been, probably, eight or ten years ago, and I know Acer has improved its quality since then.  But, with CDW-G, they will work with us on any product we want.  I’ve bought a lot of technology from them, and they provide free shipping, and they gave us a low bid, gave us a really good bid.  Been very pleased with all, everything that I’ve bought from them.  And I tried to get, with limited budget across the board, our department’s cut, a lot of others are cut.”  Burns concluded by saying, “And we’re trying to get computers in there where we can use Linux, and that’s the low-end computers, that will work just as well as the high-end computers.  And with that, that’s how I just felt that was the best route to go.”

But Smith was undeterred. “Well, when we had the issue before, Terry, did you—  You contacted Acer themselves, or attempted to, wrote them a letter, and you contacted the individual that we bought those from, both, and we got no response from either one at that point.  I mean, and at that point we pretty much agreed we wasn’t ever going to buy Acer computers again.”

“That was with,” Burns said, “at that point we were buying them through Cyber-Tech—”

“That’s exactly right,” Smith said, bluntly.

“—and, uh, like I said, they have improved.  I know they’re making a good laptop now.  Cecil Dickey has an Acer laptop, and he works, he does a lot of work with me, and he’s proud of it.  He says it works really well.”

Chapman provided Burns (and Acer) some support, saying “I personally have an Acer laptop, and that ain’t a problem.”

“But, again,” Burns continued, “CDW-G will give us, they will, and they, and it depends on how many we buy.  The price can even go down.  On Lenovo, they can do Lenovo, they can do H.P.  So if we go with them, they give us the free shipping, and they’re real good, they’ve just been excellent to work with.”

“I understand that,” Smith replied.  “But I just, when I get burned on something, I’m just burned.  I’m done with it, you know, I just—”

“I’m not saying we go with Acer,” Burns said, reassuringly.  “I’m just saying if we go with CDW-G they can give us anything across the line that would be at least equal to that, or lower.”

“They’re a vendor,” Lacey observed.  “They have many different brands.”

“They have contacts everywhere,” Burns continued, “and they work with— They are excellent to work with.  Like I said, they will, if we happen to hit a windfall of money, and we need to buy a bunch, as many as fifteen or twenty, the will go down on the price.  And Lenovo would be the ones that I would want on the laptops.  That’s an excellent computer, at the top of the line.”

“I make a motion we accept CDW-G’s low bid on the technology,” Chapman finally said, and Lynn Baker seconded the motion.

“One other question,” Smith said, before the vote was taken.  “This says Acer on here.  Does this mean, does mean what it says?  Or does this mean we’re going to get something else?”

“That means that was the bid they gave us at that time,” Burns replied, “but we can get something else, yes.  We can get something else.  It would be equivalent to that—”

“I guess my point is, it don’t matter,” Smith said.  “I’m sure we’re going to approve it.  I’m not going to vote for it if we’re going to buy Acers.  I’m not going to vote for it.”

“Well, I’m not a big Acer fan,” Burns acknowledged, “but I do know they have improved.”

“Because,” Smith explained, “last time, they just, they laughed at us, and we was sitting here last time they wouldn’t do anything to help us.  Acer wouldn’t, or Cyber-Tech either, on that deal.  And we eat a bunch of stuff, and I don’t want the board to do that again.  I don’t want the school system—”

Burns interrupted. “I wouldn’t do anything to harm the school system, you know. I know Lenovo’s a good brand, and Acer is the one they bid out there, but they told me, when I would call them, they would work with any vendor that they could work with.  And that’s H.P.  I like H.P. and I like Lenovo.  And I like Dell, but they’re just way too high, for what we have.  The money we have.  And to use Linux.  And I, we’re working real hard to make that work.  It would save us a lot of money.  It’s possible we could put in an entire classroom for twelve to fifteen hundred dollars, with the computers that we already have.  That’s possible, at this time.  I don’t want to be held to that, but that’s the word I got.  We’ve talked about it today.”

“Thank you, Mr. Burns,” Lacey said.  “Any other discussion?”

“How long has it been since you had this problem with Acer?” Blakely asked.  “Eight or ten years?”

“Eight or ten years,” Burns repeated.  “It’s been at least that long.”

“And you’re satisfied now with the product?” Blakely asked.

“I’m satisfied,” Burns said.

“Now I—” Lacey began, before starting over.  “We didn’t buy, before, directly from Acer. We bought through a vendor.  And this vendor is our first line of defense, and the manufacturer is the second line of defense.”

“Yes, sir,” Burns agreed.

“But,” Smith insisted, “he wrote, we had, the board asked him to write Cyber-Tech and Acer, both, a letter.  And he did, the best I remember about the whole deal.  And we never got response from either one, on the issue.  We never got anything resolved.”

“But we’ve been using Cyber-Tech—” Lacey began.

“At that time we were,” Burns said.

“—and we have— Have we used them since?” Lacey asked.

“We used them, ahh,” Burns began.  “We’ve used them some, yes.”

Lacey then instructed Burns to call the roll.  Six of the seven board members responded yes, as did the seventh, albeit not without one last comment.  When his name was called, Smith responded, “I’m going to vote yes, with the understanding that if we can get anything else besides Acer, that’s what I want us to do.”

“I will do everything I can,” Burns said, getting in the final word.

Soccer Field

“Item H,” Lacey read from the agenda, “under 5, items for approval, the bid on the soccer field.”

Miskelly added a word of explanation. “Since this packet went out the bid has been revised a little bit.  I think the bid, original bid, was twenty-seven thousand, and that bid has been reduced to twenty-five.  Mayor David Robinson is here.  I’d like for him to talk, but I think the city board has approved a $10,000 payment toward this twenty-five thousand, and they’re asking the McNairy County Board of Education to contribute fifteen thousand.  I have some pictures that probably weren’t in your packet that Mr. Hamm has provided, and, Mayor Robinson, I’d ask you to speak to this.”

“Sure,” Robinson said, coming forward from his seat in the audience.  “One of the big things—and I appreciate the time—the revised bid, there’s a major difference from the two that you got before.  The $27,000 bid you got was leveling, irrigation, and sprigging.  The bid we’ve got now is irrigation and full sod.  So the field will be ready in a month, if you will.  I’ve talked to Mr. Hamm about that.  We’re talking a regulation-sized field, 360 feet long, 225 wide, probably with a five-foot border, all the way around it.  The soccer field existing is going to be laser level, it will be irrigated— and did you, did they get a copy of the irrigation system in there [that is, in their packets]?  There’s a—  Anyway, it will be completely irrigated.  I’ve got the city standing by to bring in the meter for the irrigation system.

“Talking with Mr. Hamm, they are ready to start in the morning, disking it up.  If you’ve been out to the soccer field, like kind of maybe if you go out there right now, with the rain, and you’ll see where the water stands.  This is going to level that up, drain it, and I’ve got their guarantee that if this does not stop the drainage they’ll put drains in at either side of the field to drain the water off.  I’ve talked with both Coach Lott and Coach Day.  They feel comfortable that they can keep play off of that until September the 1st, at which time this field will be ready to play.

“The city board on Tuesday night approved a $10,000 donation toward this project, which basically will keep you back at the $15,000 that we originally discussed.  I think it’s an excellent partnership, quite frankly, between the school board and the city of Selmer, because y’all certainly use it out there a lot, the city uses it.  The same thing with the tennis courts.  We’re getting those repaved.  They start, I think the 14th.  Is that next Monday?  They start paving the tennis courts, and certainly the high schools use that a lot, as do our citizens.  So, I would hate to see us miss this opportunity, quite frankly.  You know, it’s not much to ask.  The next project, and I’ll throw this out to you, once we get this, because I want you to approve this, I want to look in to see how we can light that field out there so we can really use it around the clock.  I mean, at that point in time it opens us up to tournaments.

“The only other thing that I did talk with both coaches and Sybil Dancer about, and Tony [Chapman] as a matter of fact, the other night, we are going to have to put a barrier in there so we can keep the cars off of that.  But I think, quite frankly, and Charlie, help me with this, I’m pretty sure we can get some donated phone poles, light poles, from Pickwick Electric, that can be cut down and sunk in the ground with cable running through it so it really won’t impede pedestrian traffic, but it will certainly keep cars off of that field.  Because once we do this, and I read in the minutes from last month that there was some discussion about the Cars for Kids— They need to go somewhere else.  I mean, because we don’t need to spend $25,000 and let folks get in there.  One thing that Sybil’s concerned about, and we probably want to do this, the barrier, sooner rather than later.  She’s concerned about just some vandals coming in and doughnut on the field after it gets in there.  So I would—  When does school start back?”

“August the 1st, basically,” Miskelly replied, before adding, inexplicably, “It was kids six, fifth, sixth, seventh, somewhere in there.”

“Is,” Robinson asked, “what I’m talking about with the pole, cable and all.  Is that something the vocational group can do at the high school?”

“They could,” Miskelly responded.  “Probably our metal department could do something to help, they’ve done something—”

“And we’ll certainly try to help,” Robinson continued.  “You know, I’ll put the city’s resources in there to help, you know, with drilling some holes or whatever, but I would like to get that in there, probably as soon as they— Well, let’s see, if they start— He said it would take about two weeks.  A week for the irrigation, and a week to sod it.  And then it will be ready to play September 1st.  So we probably need to, once school starts we need to start looking at getting that protected.  But, hopefully, y’all can find that money, because I think it’s a great partnership.  I think it’s going to be great for the kids, it’s going to be great for the city.  We’ll finally have a great, a good soccer field.  And I’ll entertain any of your questions, if you have them.”

“There’s going to have to be some dirt hauled in to the field,” Smith observed.

“Well,” Robinson replied, “what they’re going to do, Mr. Smith, they’re going to plow that up and they’re going to go outside, you know how that field slopes?  They’re going to take some of that dirt right there and bring her down.  And if we’ve got to get dirt, I’ll get you dirt.  That’s not a big deal.  We’re going to make the field right.  So you’ve got my commitment on that.”

“Mayor,” Blakely then asked, “is there any kind of a break-in period on the sod?  Can you just go out and have a full-scale, full range of activities, soccer games from now until the end of the year and it, uh—”

“Sure can,” Robinson responded.  “And that’s coming from Pettigrew, is where it’s coming.  And it’s that sports tiff, what is it, four, four-nineteen?  I think it’s the same stuff that’s on your football field, isn’t it?  That’s sports Bermuda up there?”

“I don’t think so,” Miskelly replied.  “But I don’t know.”

“But, yeah,” Robinson said to Blakely.  “To answer your question, by September the 1st they’re ready to go.  Because this will be down—  If he starts, this grass and field will be in by the first of August.  So that’ll give it a full month to sit, watering, establishing itself, and then it’s ready to play.  And, you know, to alleviate any of your concerns, we can get Coach Day and Coach Lott together with Hamm and Pettigrew, to ensure that.  But, yeah, I’m pretty well, I’m told that they’re ready to play September the 1st.”

Lacey then asked if there were any other questions, and Chapman responded, “Yeah, I’d just like us to commend the city of Selmer and the board of alderman for, and you, Mayor, for committing to do this.  And I think it’s a good partnership—”

“Oh, I do, too,” Robinson responded.  “I think it’s a great opportunity.”

“This might be a good opportunity to thank the mayor and the alderman, too,” Burns added.  “They gave— I went before the board Tuesday night, and they gave the One to One $2,000.  And they gave a thousand last year.”

“The board came through,” Robinson said.  “They did good.  I was proud of them.”

“And I thanked them on behalf of the board,” Burns continued.  “And I especially thanked them on behalf of the children of McNairy County.”

Blakely expressed his appreciation as well.  “I’d like to add my voice of commendation to the mayor and the board, too.  You know, we don’t have a soccer field for the athletes of McNairy Central, and what we— Well, we do, but I think we deserve to make this a top-notch facility, as long as it is what it is.  And so I’m in agreement to do it, and I thank you for the work you’ve done on this.”

Chapman then made “a motion that we approve $15,000 to, for our part of the soccer field at Selmer Middle School.”  The motion, seconded by Blakely, passed by a unanimous roll call vote.

Hughes Street, Episode Whatever

Lacey then called on Miskelly for the director of schools reports.  After pointing out that “obviously we don’t have a revenue report for this month,” Miskelly turned to the recurring issue of Hughes Street.  

“Hughes Street, Adamsville Elementary.  You remember several months ago we talked about Hughes Street and paving it, the street that runs down by Adamsville Elementary and the Headstart Program and the Pre K-4 building, whatever.  Mr. Thrasher approached me again and wanted to know, if I understand him right, this is basically his comment.  He said that we’re paving the streets in Adamsville.  We’re allotting money.  Hughes Street is not one of our priorities, but if the Board of Education would meet us half way and pay half of that cost, then that would probably bump it up to a priority.  He estimates that the cost to pave Hughes Street would be somewhere between ten and twelve thousand dollars, which would be, would make our cost between five and six.  But Adamsville city wants a five-year lease on that street.  I asked him why you would want a five-year lease, and his response, basically, was, paraphrasing, ‘Well, if we’re going to put five or six thousand dollars in that street, we wouldn’t want the board of education to turn around next month or next week or next year and close that street to where it could not be used by the city.’  So, again, they’re approaching us about paving Hughes Street and splitting the cost.  But they want a five-year lease on—”

“Is the five-year lease contingent upon splitting the cost?” Blakely asked.

“Yes, sir,” Miskelly replied.  “Yes, sir, I’m ninety-nine percent sure that that is contingent, yes, sir.”

“So” Blakely asked, “they say it’s our street, right?”

Miskelly nodded his head, but Lacey said, “No, we say it’s our street.  It belongs to the board of education.  For five years it was a county road, and the county didn’t want to pave it, and now it’s the board of education’s road.”

Blakely said that he didn’t “feel good okaying an agreement” that would tie the school board’s hands for five years, then Smith offered a suggestion. “What if we did something like, if we did decide to close it.  I mean, I don’t feel good about, you know, doing a five-year lease.  And I think there was a reason— Craig’s [town attorney Craig Kennedy] not here, but there was a reason that he gave us before for us not to do that.  A suggestion that he gave us, maybe.  What if we agreed to pay half the cost of paving the street, and if we do close it within five years, or have to be in it, we agree to pay the entire cost, or the balance of the cost.  Why would they not agree to something like that?”

“I don’t know that they wouldn’t,” Miskelly said, and Lacey remarked that it “Makes sense.”

“That would be my motion,” Smith said, and Chapman seconded it.

Lacey said, “I have a motion by Mr. Smith, second by Mr. Chapman, that we approve paving half of the cost of paving Hughes Street at Adamsville Elementary School, on the condition that if we decide to close the road to the public in the future, within five years, we will reimburse them their portion.”

After Chapman and Blakely addressed some particulars, Smith said, “All right, I change the motion to say what we said at the beginning.  Split the cost, and then within five years if we decide that we need to close it or use the street then we reimburse the city of Adamsville whatever, fifty percent, or fifty percent of their cost is, not to exceed $12,000, to be completed this summer?  Within ninety days?”  Chapman seconded the revised motion, which carried by a unanimous roll call vote, with Lacey, who is an Adamsville commissioner, abstaining.

Craig Kennedy

“One last extra comment,” Miskelly then said.  “And this really none of my business, but maybe it is.  Last month the school board attorney, Craig Kennedy, resigned, and I’m going to tell you that Craig Kennedy is not only a good man, but does a good job with school board law.  Very knowledgeable, very considerate, very patient.  And I know that anybody and everybody can be replaced, but I would encourage or ask this board to, for us to somehow approach him and ask him if he would reconsider that, because he’s very valuable to me, calling and getting advice and opinions before we wade of in something and get in trouble.  He’s done an outstanding job for a long time, and I know sometimes people make decisions, and I know his children were part of that decision, but I would just ask this board to consider, us, somebody, as a group or somebody designated to call him and ask him to reconsider that, because I think he’s a valuable asset to us.  That’s my personal opinion.”

“I agree,” said Johnny Blakely.  “I agree with your statement that all of us can be replaced, some probably, myself included, easier than others.  But if we got a new attorney, first of all it would take some time for them to get up to speed on we, what Craig and the board even has in the works, not to mention the various facets of school law.  And I think it’s a good idea.”

Lacey said that he would “be glad to approach Mr. Kennedy on behalf of the board and see what we can do to try to keep him as our attorney, and bring back any suggestions or comments.”

* * *

That turned out not to be Miskelly’s “last comment” after all.  He had two more.

In response to a question from Lacey, Miskelly reported that “Ms Brooks is up and about and working and doing better.  She gave us a pretty good scare, but she is doing well and back at work, and doing good.”

And then he reported that “We’re working on our science labs.  We’ve got them pretty well torn out. The floor, the ceiling remodeled, and now waiting on the cabinets and the sinks and the gas and water to be run, but I think, I hope, that— in fact, I had some pictures taken of the old science lab at McNairy Central, and I think when you see the new ones I think you will be very proud.  We’ve tried to improve that considerably for the students of our schools, because, again, in my opinion, that was something that was very limited in our ability to offer upper-level science and have lab work and I think, once that’s completed, hopefully by August the 1st, that you’ll be very proud of it.”

One to One

“Any other board members have a comment?” Lacey asked.

Chapman responded, “I’d like to comment on the, Mr. Burns, the One on One [sic] initiative. I think—  Is it my understanding that we don’t have anything in the budget this year for that?  Per se?”

Chapman’s question was directed to Miskelly, who responded, “Per se.  I’ll let Mr. Burns, obviously his budget has been, as all items were, cut back from our original figures, to make a balanced budget, and make a budget work.  And he took a pretty good hit with technology.  But obviously some of that money could be spent on One to One, and I think we’ve made some plans to do some additions to, with One on One [sic], as he quoted earlier.  Looking at some ways that we can address One on One [sic] and still save some dollars.  But I would defer to him and let him make some remarks about that.”

Before Burns could speak, Lacey said, “One thing that I would like to— Mr. Robinson, if you wouldn’t mind, I’d like you to challenge the other mayors in our county, including the county mayor, to match, at least match what the city of Selmer has done—”

“Be happy to,” Robinson responded, before adding that, “realistically, Adamsville is probably about the only one that can do that, just looking at the budgets, and the federal money, but I will certainly challenge them for something.  Be happy to.”

Lacey then asked Burns if he wished to add anything.

“Just that I’m, we’re working real hard to do the Linux this year, and that’s, it’s free software, it’s totally free.  And you just use, basically a box, it has to be, the computer box has to be, of course, Linux compatible.  And that should save us a lot of money.  The program works.  I’ve seen it work.  I know it works.  It worked when I was in the classroom.  And there was some, somehow rumors got out that we wasn’t going to do anything, we’re not going to do anything.  Well, we are.  As long as I got breath in my body, I will support the One to One.  As long as I’m technology coordinator, I will do what it takes to get that in there.  It works.  I just have to work with, we’ve all taken a pretty hard hit, and I’m just having to work with what I’ve got, and we’ll use every avenue possible that we can to keep going.  We’re hopefully going to have, we’re going to have one at McNairy Central, and we’ll, we’ve got another school in mind.  It hasn’t totally panned out yet, but we’ll have at least two, hopefully, by the time school starts.  Two more.”

Chapman then addressed the limited scope of the program, saying, “So we’re going to have the current ones in the same grades that they were in, so the students who are advancing to the next grade will not have the availability of continuing in the program.  Is that correct?”

“That’s correct,” Burns acknowledged.

“I think that’s going to be a big let down, don’t you?” Chapman asked.

“I know it will,” Burns replied.  “There’s a survey, and I’ve got it, that they ran at one of the classrooms, and it’s an amazing survey.  I’ll show it to you some time.  I don’t have it.  It’s in my office.  But all the kids loved it.  It inspired them to learn more.  A lot of them bought computers as a result of it.  They got excited about learning.  Attendance was up, absentees down, discipline was down.  People wanted, the kids wanted to come to school.  They wanted to learn.  The biggest thing you could do is to go see it, and see those kids light up as they’re learning.  How excited they get about learning.  And everything, I get emails every day about it, of these people that are, people that support it like I do.  And the creativity that it does, the innovation, the critical thinking, all of this is what the skills are for tomorrow.   And I was talking to a [unintelligible word] this week, and he was talking about the plant down in Tupelo they’ve been building.  Forty dollars an hour, they’re going to start kid at out of high school, that know technology skills.  Forty dollars an hour.  That’s just right out of high school.  And that’s not— That’s, that’s, what it does is to inspire kids to learn, not just to go to college but for the real work force.  Both.  They’re come together.  It’s an inspirational tool.”

“I’m just curious,” Robinson said from his seat in the audience.  “Terry, what’s the ballpark cost to equip a classroom with computers, to get that started?”

“With what we did last year,” Burns replied, “with new computers, Dell computers, top of the line, it was twenty-five, twenty, eighteen to twenty.  That was with the best computers.  Then we had to put in, we had to have new desks, we had to put the cabling in, and we bought a little software.”

After a bit more discussion regarding cost and equipment Chapman added a final observation. “I’d just like to add one thing on that line.  If we have any capital improvements that we’re going to put in, I think we need to do some on technology, because if we just do capital improvements on buildings, then we’re missing the whole boat if we don’t include technology.”

12 June 2008

Thursday, 12 June 2008, was a sad day for the students and children of McNairy County.  It was the day on which the school board (with one exception) cravenly abandoned any pretense that it had any oversight or control over the director of schools.  And the transparency of the coup only added insult to the injury.

The problem is not that Mr. Miskelly may not be the best person for the job.  The problem is that the way the process was conducted—it appears, was deliberately conducted—made it impossible to determine whether he was or he wasn’t.  And Mr. Miskelly and Board Chairman Frank Lacey were directly involved in putting forth and promoting the flawed procedure.

The irony here is that he didn’t have to do it.  This school board, in common with most school boards across the country, largely allows itself to be led around by the nose by the director of school.  Only Larry Smith challenges Miskelly with any regularity, and Board Chairman Frank Lacey is a reliable cheerleader for whatever course or policy Miskelly wishes to pursue.  So there never was any question whether the board would ultimately renew the director’s contract.  That being the case, Miskelly’s actions can only reasonably be interpreted as rubbing the board’s—and the tax paying public’s—nose in it.

Extending Miskelly’s Reign

That the fix was in at the June meeting of the McNairy County school board was evident from a mere glance at the agenda.  As any regular attendee of these meetings knows, the board’s agenda always contains the following major topics, always in this order:

1. CALL TO ORDER

2. PRESENTATION

3. CERTIFIED PERSONNEL REPORT—FYI

4. CLASSIFIED PERSONNEL REPORT—FYI

5. CONSENT AGENDA

6. ITEMS FOR APPROVAL

7. DIRECTOR OF SCHOOLS REPORTS

But the June agenda was different.  Squeezed in between CALL TO ORDER and PRESENTATION was

2. ITEM FOR APPROVAL

A. RENEWAL OF DIRECTOR OF SCHOOLS CONTRACT

All the other regular agenda topics were there, only numbered one digit higher.  That this item was special was evident from the fact that the June agenda did include the regular ITEMS FOR APPROVAL, renumbered 7 instead of 6, and under that “7. ITEMS FOR APPROVAL”—for approval,  mind you, not “for your information,” or “here’s something you might find interesting,” but for approval—was found, as item 7.K., “EVALUATION OF DIRECTOR OF SCHOOLS,” tucked safely away on page three of the three-page agenda, where it would not even be considered until long after the director’s contract was safely renewed.  (Later in the meeting Miskelly admitted that he had himself placed the item on the back page of the agenda.)

Here, verbatim, are the words with which Board Chairman Frank Lacey opened the June meeting: “Well, my wife is here, so I’ll go ahead and call this meeting to order.  And the first thing on the agenda, I will entertain a motion to renew the director of schools contract, which will expire June 30th of 2009, and the renewal will be for two years, from 7/1/09 to 6/30 2011.  Do I hear a motion?”

The motion was promptly provided by Tony Chapman and seconded by Lynn Baker, but before Lacey could call for a vote an incredulous Larry Smith asked, “Are we not getting the cart before the horse, here?  Should we not do the evaluation first?”

“I believe the approval’s got to be the only thing,” Lacey said, somewhat confusedly, but he did condescend to allow Terry Burns, who serves as recorder at school board meetings, to pass out copies of what Lacey called “the evaluation,” which had until then been withheld from the board member.  Burns then removed some papers from a large envelope and distributed them to the board members in attendance.  Board members are routinely mailed a packet of reports and other materials before the monthly meetings so that they can familiarize themselves with the materials in advance of the meetings, but copies of “the evaluation” were conspicuously absent from the packets sent to the board members before the June meeting.

After he glanced briefly over the document he had just received, Johnny Blakely said, “There’s no breakdown on these, other than just the over-all, is that—”

“Over-all, yes,” Lacey said, dismissively.  “He [the reference is to Kevin Redmon, to whom the seven board members had submitted their individual evaluations] has all the, all seven evaluations, if anyone wants to go by and look at the seven.  [Redmon's office is not open at seven o'clock on Thursday evenings, so Lacey's "offer" was meaningless, as well as insulting to the intelligence of his hearers.]  It’s just an overview and a grade,” Lacey said, referring to the “evaluation.” Then, less than three minutes into the meeting, without the board members having been allowed to look at the collective evaluations upon which they were supposed to base their decision in the weighty matter of whether or not to extend the contract of the director of schools for an additional two years, Lacey called for a vote.  Larry Smith cast the lone “no” vote among the members present.  (Alvin Wilson and Jean Jones were not present at the June meeting.)

After the roll call was completed, Lacey looked over at board attorney Craig Kennedy.  This was evidently as signal, as Kennedy rose to his feet.  “I think Mr. Kennedy has something—” Lacey began.

“You also need a motion to authorize you [Lacey] to sign the contract,” Kennedy said before sitting down again.

Right on cue, Lacey said, “I need a motion authorizing the chairman to sign the contract.”  Baker made the motion, which Chapman seconded, whereupon Lacey immediately called for a vote without asking if there was any discussion.

“Did I miss—” Blakely began before anyone could vote, then he inquired about the terms of the contract which the board was being asked to approve.

In his best “Move along here, there’s nothing to see” voice, Lacey replied, “We’re renewing the same, renewal of the contract the same two-year term.  No further discussion, all in favor indicate their vote by saying aye.  [Chapman, Baker, Blakely and Lacey said “aye.”]  Opposed?  [Smith said “no.”]  The ayes have it.”

Total elapsed time from calling the meeting to order to extending the director of schools’ contract for an additional two years: three minutes and twenty-nine seconds.  It just goes to show how efficiently government business can be conducted when the public’s representatives are not burdened with such unnecessary information as the contents of employment evaluations and the terms of contracts.

Adult Education

That bit of misgovernment out of the way, Lacey returned to the regular agenda, calling on Patsy Pearson of the Adult Education Department for a presentation.

“Thank you, Mr. Lacey,” Pearson began, only to be interrupted by freshly-renewed School Director Charlie Miskelly.  “Before Ms Pearson says something,” Miskelly said, resorting to the tiresome self-deprecation to which he is prone, “could I just say that one of my few strengths, and obviously many weaknesses, is to surround myself with good people.  And I want to thank Ms Pearson for the job that she has done as adult education director over the last four years.  She has taken that program and run with it, and I just want to say thank you publicly to Ms Pearson for the job that she does on a daily basis.  And, again, thank you.”

“I appreciate you telling me that,” Pearson said, “and I appreciate being able to do it.  But I would just say something up right now: it’s not me.  I do try to cover what goes on in the building, and try to make sure everything’s going the best it can be, but it’s definitely my staff, that I have with me tonight.  They are [unintelligible words].  They’re dedicated.  They’re talented.  They’re professional.  And always, always looking out for the best of the students.  And so that’s what we’re focused on.  

“But.  I do appreciate you giving me an opportunity to give you just a synopsis of our program.  And I didn’t do a power-point, I thought it would be better— I do have a folder [indicates folders which board members have been given], and in this folder is the material that you can refer to.  And I’ll try to allude to some of it as I go through, but we’ve had an exceptional year, and I do want to review some of their accomplishments, of our program.  You’ll find in your folder, first is our brochure, and we just give you a brief synopsis of what adult education is all about.  Our mission statement is there.  

“Since I’ve come on, on July 1st of 2004, until June 30th of last year, we’ve served 1052 people, and we had 280 GED recipients.  Now this year has been phenomenal.  We have served 230 participants, with possible 20 more that we’re in the process of getting entered into our database.  We’ve had 87 GEDs to this point.  We had 20 testers last Friday, and hopefully the majority of those testers will receive their GEDs, so our graduation on June 22nd we hope to have 107 GEDS registered.  And I think that’s history-making.  And as I’ve gone back and researched, I don’t think we’ve had that many.  So, we’re just excited to be able to have the opportunity to help this many people.  

“We also serve our dislocated workers, and I want to be completely honest with you, when I took this job, and they talked about some of these things, I’m going, ‘How is that connected with adult ed?’  But adult ed is to help our citizens, our adult citizens in McNairy County in whatever way we can.   So when a person loses a job, and they need to go back to school to get some extra training to find another job, they often need some refresher skills courses.  And so they come back to us, we work with them.  We pay them and do assessment tests to find out what level they need help in.  We work with them in math, or reading, or language, or whatever it is.  And then, they brush up, and they go back and they take their entrance test into vacation schools, or colleges.  And so we are able to help them that way.  We helped, we worked with 130 dislocated workers this year.  

“And also would call your attention to the fact that there is a club, at this time, UT Martin comes out and does our testing for us on the site, which makes it easier, and they have what they call the 600 Club.  Eight hundred is a perfect score on the GED.  So anything above a 600 is extraordinary.  We have 35 in that club at this time.  So, not only are they getting their GED, but they’re getting a good dose of education at a higher level, so we’re just excited about that.  And again, I do just want to mention our GED graduation, we’d love to see you there.  

“We have, for the last two years … we’ve been awarded the performance excellence award, and that’s where we meet all the goals of the state education.  They set up the standards to meet.  We keep an eye on those tables, and we look at them, and we analyze the students and we see what we can do.  For the last two years we’ve been given the gold award, and hopefully we will do it again this year.

“We are also in the process of looking toward doing a second level of Far Reach.  We have the entrance level in our building, and we’re beginning to work on the commitment level, which is the next level.  So, that’s pretty much adult education, but that’s not all we do.  That program in itself keeps me busy, but there’s other programs, too, and I just want to tell you a little bit about them—”

Blakely interrupted. “Can I ask you a question before I forget it?  The ones who score 600 or above, is there any special recognition on their GED diploma?”

“Not on their GED,” Pearson replied.  “But when we do graduation we acknowledge that, and we call attention, and also of course we give awards and high light that.  And so, I wish—  That’s a good idea, and that’s something I will take to the state department, because sometimes they take suggestions from the field, and sometimes they’re so good they take them for their own, for themselves, but I’ll see what we can do about that.  That’s a very good idea.  

“Also in our building, we have the Our of School Youth, and that is a special program for students 17 to 21 year old, that failed to get their high school diplomas.  And I’ve never educate— I’m an educator from the inside out, and I know that high school education is important.  But sometimes students just don’t make it through high school.  And they need an education.  So at this particular age we know they’re vulnerable, so we try to find these students and we bring them in, and we have a special grant through the W.I.A. [Workforce Investment Areas], and we work with those students to not only try to get their GED, but also to find them a job when they get through.  If you will notice, this last year, we served 38 students in this Out of School Youth; 27 earned a GED, with four students awaiting the test results from June 6, so we have a possibility of 31 of 38.  That’s an exceptional percentage, higher than any of the other sub-contractors.  And I know I say that, it sounds like I’m bragging.  Maybe I am, but we’re proud of our students, okay?

“And the pilot Pre-K class.  You know, one side of our building is adults, and the other side is children.  And we’ve had our pilot Pre-K program there for the last six, seven years.  We served twenty students this year, four- and three-year-olds.  We had sixteen four-year-olds and four three-year-olds.  And when we give the test, the four-year-olds, the scores are very good, it indicates everybody is ready for kindergarten.

“And then, of course, we have Even Start in our building.  And Even Start is, there’s a description in there, I’m not got to read it to you, but I just want to tell you that this is the way we help families that try to give their students an even start when they start to school.  Ms Cathy Taylor is over this program.  She helps parents, she works with the whole family, and many times families come to us and they use Even Start as a child care, while they’re working on their GED.  So, it’s an incredible program, and it all works together.”

“Then, of course, we have the Family Resource Center, with Ms Pam Vandiver, and she has, I believe she has her report in your list there for tonight.  So, I just wanted to mention all of those programs.”

“Also, we have a newly created little pamphlet, information booklet.  And Ms Pam has worked on this and we thought it was really neat because it’s a flip chart, and it pretty much gives you an idea of everything that we do in our building.  And, by the way, you know the W.I.A. is also housed in our building, Ms Jennie Carroll.  It works well, because we do so much work with her.  So, all those programs are listed in here, and a brief description, and we hope to use this to enhance our image in the public and to bring recognition, and to let people know what services are in there.  And we find that is our weakness.  People don’t know what we do out there.  So we’re trying to do that and let everybody know.

“I just want to tell you again that I appreciate the support that you give us.  Without your help, without your support, we couldn’t help the people that we do in McNairy County.  

“And before I sit down, there’s one other person that I want to introduce, and that is Betty Hurst.  Ms Betty, would you come up here for just a moment, please?  She is one of our students from this year.  When she came to us, back, what, early in the year, I guess.  January.  She was insecure, and she said ‘I just don’t know that I can do this.’  And we said, ‘Oh, we’ll work with you.  We’ll work with you.’  I’ll never forget, one day I walked in and was going to help with math, because I think Mr. May had gone somewhere, and Ms Betty was kind of frustrated, and I said ‘This will come.  Just don’t worry about it.’  Ms Betty took her GED test, not this last time, but the time before, and guess what?  Ms Betty got her GED.  And when we told her, we all cried.  Because we were so excited, because she deserved it.  I just asked her to come and just tell you just a word or two of what the program has meant to her, and some of the things that take place in the building.  And we won’t take up a lot of your time.  Ms Betty?”

“I enjoyed going to school there,” Hurst said.  “They’ve got three of the fantastic teachers you ever want to meet.  I call them the three Cs.  Mr. Curl, Ms Cathy, and Ms Craig.  Ms Craig is my favorite, because she’s hard on you.  She makes you study.  But I’d tell anybody that hasn’t got their GED to go there, and they will, if you want to learn, you will learn, because they will push it into you.  It’s a fantastic place.  That’s all I’ve got to say.  Thank you.”

Pearson asked if there were any questions, and Lacey asked her if she would announce the date and time of the graduation again.

“Yes,” Pearson said, “it’s June 22nd, 2:00 p.m., at McNairy Central Little Theatre.  And afterwards— There’s the graduation, which, already we’ve got over, what, fifty, right at fifty that’s agreed to come and take part in this, and be honored, and then there’ll be a reception following.”

Items for Approval

After the board promptly (40 seconds flat) and unanimously approved the Certified Personnel Report, the Classified Personnel Report, and the Consent Agenda on a motion by Chapman, seconded by Blakely, Lacey moved on to Items for Approval—numbered “7” on this special occasion, rather than its usual “6.”

The low bid for LP gas ($1.94 per gallon) was unanimously approved on a motion by Chapman, seconded by Smith, and the low bid for diesel fuel ($3.79 per gallon) was unanimously approved on a motion by Smith, seconded by Baker.  A breakfast waiver for McNairy Central High was unanimously approved (without explanation of what a breakfast waiver is) on a motion by Smith, seconded by Chapman.

The board then unanimously approved the low bid of $351,146.80 for four new buses on a motion by Smith, seconded by Blakely.  The next two items were also bus-related.  On a motion by Chapman, seconded by Smith, the board voted unanimously to increase the bus charge for trips from fifty cents to a dollar per mile.  The board also unanimously approved, again on a motion by Chapman, seconded by Smith, increase in drivers’ hourly charges for trips from $9 to $10 for day trips and from $10 to $11 for night trips.

At this point Lacey, evidently not realizing that there was a third page to the agenda, said “Something else we needed to—” and fumbled with other papers before him while holding the agenda in his right hand.  “I’ve got another item here on the, for approval on the new packet that we got,” he said, before Miskelly pointed out there was another page.

“Schools to carry outstanding invoices over to the next, new fiscal year,” Lacey read. “Item G in your packet.”  Smith made the motion, which was seconded by Chapman and passed unanimously.

“H. is declare property surplus for auction,” Lacey read from the agenda.  “Buses, computer equipment, furniture, desks, chairs, tables, etc.  This is going to be coming from numerous departments?” he asked Miskelly.

“Right,” Miskelly replied.  “We have them up at the maintenance building, and we’d like to auction those off on June 21st.”

“Public auction?” Lacey asked, and Miskelly confirmed that it would be; the item passed unanimously on a motion by Chapman, seconded by Smith.

There was a bit of confusion over the next two items, both relating to school nutrition.  After Lacey said, “I. is the 2007-08 school nutrition budget amends and transfers,” Miskelly, who confused the years, said, “Just a comment about the nutritious [sic] budget.  This is being accomplished without a raise in prices for lunches and breakfasts.  We think we can do that, and I know a lot of schools around are raising prices, but we think we can maintain what we’ve got with the price that we have, $1.25 and $1.50 for lunch, and 75 cents for breakfast.  And I commend Ms Brooks and her staff for the exceptional work they do to maintain that.”

Lacey remarked, “I understand that they’re going to be able to keep the costs of the meals the same next year?  [Miskelly nods affirmatively.]  Do I have a motion?”  Chapman made the motion, which passed unanimously after being seconded by Smith.

Lacey continued, “The next item is J, 2008-09 school nutrition budget.”

“I’m sorry,” Miskelly said, realizing his earlier mistake.  “I confused you a little bit.  I got a little ahead of it.  Actually, what Mr. Lacey was referring to was the transfers for this year, the first one, which is on the back of the page, and then the first page is the budget, so I apologize.  That’s my fault.”

Lacey was understanding. “I know we have a lot of approving and a lot of amending, end of the year stuff.  Now we’ll be, I’ll entertain a motion to approve the 2008-2009 school nutrition budget.”  The motion was provided by Smith, seconded by Chapman, and passed unanimously.

Evaluation of Director of Schools

“Item K is evaluation of director of schools,” Lacey then read.  “You’ve already been handed that out.  I don’t know if it has to be approved or not,” Lacey added, ignoring the fact that it was listed under “Items for Approval.”

“I didn’t know exactly where to put it,” Miskelly said with a completely straight face, “so I put it there.  Again, that was my fault.”  

So the director of education, the renewal of whose contract was to be voted on by the board at this meeting, “didn’t know exactly where to put” the evaluation on which the decision on whether to renew his contract was to be based, so he put the vote on the renewal of his contract at the very head of the agenda, immediately after the “Call to Order,” and put the “Evaluation of Director of Schools” on the last page of the agenda, as item 7K, to be taken up long after the board had been called upon to renew his contract.  If Mr. Miskelly honestly “didn’t know exactly where to put” the evaluation, then he is too incompetent to be picking up trash on the school system’s playgrounds, much less to be running the school system.  The only reasonable alternative this “village idiot” explanation for his action is that Mr. Miskelly knew perfectly well that in any rational universe the “Evaluation of Director of Schools” would come before the vote on “Renewal of Director of Schools Contract” and he deliberately chose to hide the evaluation at the end of the agenda, where it would be rendered moot by the earlier vote on the renewal of his contract which he put as the first item of business on the agenda.  Either way, his action is beneath the dignity of the office he holds and an insult to the taxpayers of this county who pay his princely salary.

2008-2009 School Budget

Lacey then moved right along, as though this chicanery was no big deal. “7.L. is the 2008-2009 school budget.  It’s in our little handout that we’ve got here.”

The budget, and its consequences, engendered considerable discussion.  Miskelly began by saying “It’s basically the same budget that you got about a week ago at the county commission education committee meeting.  Did have to go back and reduce $50,000 that the county commission had committed last year.  They did not commit that this year.  Going to have a balanced budget, it’s going to be tight.  As we know, a lot of costs and things are going up.  This does include a 3% raise for classified employees.  And it’s going to be tight, but we think we can make it.”

Smith asked, “On the budget that we had—I assume it’s the same on this one, I haven’t finished look at it—but that we got at the meeting with the county commission the other night, the tuition is, out-of-county tuition is less, four thousand dollars.”  Miskelly put his hand to his ear, as though he could not hear, so Smith said it again.  “Out-of-county tuition is less by four thousand dollars, on the budget, wise.”

“The reason there,” Miskelly replied, “is because I estimated this year at $26,500, I believe it was, and we did not meet that number, and so I reduced it to what we did collect this year.  You know, we’ve had some attrition of students, some graduated, and you know we, again, tried to meet that 95% ratio of students, and so I just didn’t want to go over it, so I reduced that.”

“So we have less out-of-county students, is that the bottom line?” Smith asked.

Miskelly evaded the question while pretending to answer it: “Basically, we have less that are paying, yes.”  (This did not answer Smith’s question, which he had raised at board meetings the previous summer, as reported in our account of the August board meeting: “On a motion by Lacey, seconded by Baker, the board approved the second reading of the Non-Resident Teachers Policy, which will ‘Allow children of non-resident “out of state” teachers of the McNairy County School District to attend a school in the McNairy County school system without tuition charge.’  Voting no were board members Alvin Wilson and Larry Smith, both of whom had argued against the policy on financial grounds when it was proposed at the July 12 meeting.”)

“This doesn’t include anything for certified?” Chapman then asked.

“It does not,” Miskelly replied.  “You remember the first numbers that I received from the state included a 2% raise for teachers, and when I got the final budget figures in from the state they had reduced it $638,000, I believe it was, and about $300,000 of that would have gone to that raise.  That’s why we are so tight, because we only, not only lost a 2% raise, we’ve lost about three hundred other thousand, 388,000 I guess, 338,000, if you want to say.  So, it tightened our budget considerably.”

“What percentage of,” Chapman began, “do you have any idea what percentage this is of the county’s budget?”

“Forty-six?” Miskelly suggested, uncertainly.

“Forty-six?” Chapman repeated.  “Down to forty-six now?”

Miskelly still appeared uncertain.  “Wasn’t it about forty-six, I’m wanting to say?”

Chapman continued.  “And was it last year that we, they gave us $50,000 and they took two cents?”

“Fifty-eight thousand,” Miskelly corrected.

“Have they restored the two cents this year?” Chapman asked.

“No,” Miskelly said.

“Did not restore it?” Chapman asked again.  “So they gave us fifty and took forty, so we were ten to the good last year—”

“No,” Miskelly answered, “they took fifty-eight and gave us fifty.”

“So,” Chapman said, “we were eight in the hole, in the red then, and this year we’re forty more thousand, forty-eight, fifty-eight, fifty-eight more in the red.  Next year we’ll be fifty-eight more in the red.  Is that correct, each year?”

Lacey joined the discussion at this point.  “Looking at this budget, it looks like we get 5.6 million from the county, 20.9 million from the state, and about, a little bit less than 200 from the federal government.  Am I reading that right?”

“Basically,” Miskelly affirmed.  “The federal government sort of fluctuates, because there’s a lot of grants and programs that come in that we apply for that sometimes are not actually reflected in the budget until they are actually approved by the federal government and sent to us through state monies or whatever.  But we don’t reflect anything on the federal government, on the revenue, that we don’t reflect on the expenditures.”

“Right,” Lacey said.  “Our total budget for 2008-2009 will be $26,963,630.50.”

“That’s true,” Miskelly acknowledged.

Chapman asked, “What are the— Are we making any major cuts, other than not giving raises, and—  What about insurance for our teachers?  Are we going to contributing more to them?”

“No,” Miskelly said.

“We’re not going to be able to?” Chapman persisted.

Miskelly said “We’re not going to be able to contribute any more to that.  It wasn’t any major cuts.  We just took some of that new money that we got last year and, again, whittled away some of those issues, you know, staff development, some of those things down through there.  You know, a little here and a little there, but it wasn’t anything major.”

“So,” Chapman asked, turning to another area, “is it going to leave us anything to do any kind of building, further, other than what we’re doing now?”

“Again,” Miskelly said, “when we get to our amendment transfers, tonight, you know, we took a very hard estimate at this time as we were paying bills today, Ms Kaiser was working on that and writing checks and doing other things, I think you will see that, right now we show that we’ll probably finish, oh, somewhere in the neighborhood of $40,000 to the good.  But, you know, that’s give-or-take here over the next few weeks.  There may be some revenue that we collect a little bit of, and it may be some of these expenditures that we won’t get exactly those, and so we’re hoping that maybe there’ll be a little additional money left over to add to the fund balance.”

“What is the fund balance?” Chapman asked.

“Right now,” Miskelly began, “it’s about—”

Lacey supplied the figure: “$1,693,403.93.”

“Are you,” Chapman asked Miskelly, “going to report on the results of the joint meeting the other day, other night?  Later?”

Miskelly gave an affirmative response.

“Okay,” Chapman said, and then, after a pause, he said to Lacey, “You need a motion?”

“Well,” Lacey replied, “if discussion’s over.  I’m having, I want to understand that we’re going to do, basically exactly what we did this year, next year, with less money.  Is that what I’m understanding?”

“Yeah,” Miskelly replied.  “One thing, you remember that we had a, we had some money left over that we committed to our science labs, and we’re working on those right now, that $100,000.  So, that $100,000 is absorbed in the budget, so, yes and no.  We’ll have a little extra play.  That’s where some of those avoided some major cuts, probably, that $100,000.”

Lacey said, “Our One to One initiative, losing fifty thousand from the county, how much, how are we going to maintain that?”

“It’s going to be a struggle,” Miskelly observed, “but Mr. Burns has been in contact with some people [a couple of unintelligible words] capital development had some people in that—maybe I’m talking to much, let him talk—but, basically from—Mr. Burns, don’t let me say something that’s wrong—explore some avenues and ways to use some of our older computers, recycle them and do some cost saving things with those that still will help the One on [sic] One initiative.  Is that a fair way to say it?”

Burns responded in the affirmative.

Chapman turned to Burns and asked: “Is there any chance that the county commission might reconsider.  Are you going to ask them to?”

Burns replied, “They told me several months ago there wasn’t any need in asking, but I went on and asked, and they didn’t do it, so, I, it would be up to Mr. Miskelly, and this board.”

“Do we need to look at more drastic ways to cut the services we are able to provide in education?” Lacey asked.  “Do we need to be looking at cutting out, maybe some bus routes in town, things like that?  I don’t know.  I’m trying to think of ways—  Is there anything like that that we can—  I’m looking at this, and I’m seeing we’ve pretty much cut to the bone, but I don’t, I mean.  Money don’t grow on trees, I understand that, and you can’t get blood from a turnip.  You’ve done a pretty good job getting money we need for next year, and I just—”

“Well,” Miskelly replied, “like I said, it’s going to be tight.  We may have to sit down and look at things that, anything we can to save cost, some of the things, maybe, that we’ve spent money on that, I want to say are, wants instead of needs, I guess would be a pretty good way to say it.  But I, you know, like I said, it’s a tight budget, that I wouldn’t put it before you if I didn’t think we could make it work.

“I’ll entertain a motion to approve it,” Lacey then said, and the motion to approve the 2008-2009 school budget (made by Chapman and seconded by Blakely) passed by a unanimous roll call vote.

Budget Amendment Transfers

Miskelly then said, “I’ve got a couple of items we had to add to our addendum [sic] tonight.  One is your budget amendment transfers.  Again, this is a hard item to nail down.  Some people, I guess, think you can do it a little more accurately, but it’s very hard to do at this time of the year with two and a half, three weeks left in the month, and trying to do some maintenance and repairs and do other things, pay some bills, but Ms Kaiser’s done an excellent job here, and we think we’ve got it, you know, in a— I’m sure we’ll have to come back, and I would ask for authorization to come back and amend even this amended budget.  But we think there’s, oh, forty-something thousand dollars that we’re going to save if you look at the bottom line of total revenues and reserves compared to the bottom line of total expenditures.  There’s approximately, like I said, $40,000 there left over, but, and I think we’ll, there’ll probably be a line item or two that we’ll have some more money left over, so.  Again, very hard to nail down at this time of the year, but Ms Kaiser’s done an excellent job.”

Lacey asked for “a motion to approve the budget amendment, to the ‘07-’08 budget, and authorize Mr. Miskelly to amend further if necessary.”  Smith made the motion, which was seconded by Baker and passed by a unanimous roll call vote.

McNairy County Equine Association Agreement

Reading from the agenda, Lacey said, “7.N. is an agreement between McNairy County Equine Association and, I assume, the McNairy County Board of Education.  It’s in the packet that we had.”

Miskelly asked board attorney Kennedy, “Do you have any comment about this agreement, or anything you want to share with the board about this agreement?”

“Two things,” Kennedy replied.  “One, there was some concern on their part because of the language you put in there about the key.  What was agreed to basically was they can put their own lock on there, but if the gates are open we have the right to take that privilege away, if you will.  But that’s the way it’s worded now.  And the other agreement is pretty much in line with the one we done previously, with American Auction.  The only problem I think about that part is, is that there is, I’ve come across since we did that some statutes that leads me to believe that we cannot enter into an agreement like we did with American Auction.  So I guess in the future, if they come back, anything that’s a private pay, private profit, we probably don’t need to be in the business of allowing them to use our property.  And I apologize to the board for not catching that before we allowed that to happen.  I don’t have anything else, unless you have some questions.  I will say this, there is, the fair is scheduled, I understand it is to take place, and I have not talked to anybody about that yet.”

“So,” Chapman asked, “does this include any kind of rental or anything?”

“No,” Kennedy replied.  “What they’re doing, is they’re paying, you know, they’re paying for the water that coming out there, the electricity that’s coming out there, they’re keeping it mowed and maintained or whatever needs to be done, but they’re not paying any type of a rental.”

Chapman asked, “Have we got something in here that we’re grandfathering them in, because I don’t see how we can charge someone else for using it when we don’t charge them.”

“Again,” Kennedy said, “there’s nothing that says they’re grandfathered in.  This is an agreement that says it’s good until, for this year, basically.  From now until the end of October.  They have shows from April to October.  I believe that’s what that says.”

“Yeah,” Chapman confirmed.  “April through October.”

“April through October,” Kennedy repeated.  “Then after that point you can do what you like.  But there is no, I think that’s what the board’s got to do, is decide about rental, charge a rental, and how much.  I haven’t approached that with anybody.  I doubt if in years past—  The Jaycees have used it and I’m not sure that there has been any rental collected that I’m aware of.”

Chapman finally made a motion to approve the agreement, which was seconded by Smith and carried on a unanimous voice vote.

Director of Schools Reports

“Item 8,” Lacey intoned, “Director of Schools Reports.”

“Your revenue report,” Miskelly began, “I think you’ll find that in good standing.  We met several of our line items.  A couple we didn’t, but again that’s part of, I won’t call it the game we play, but trying to figure out exactly where revenue will come from and expenditures will go as far as far as making a budget, and so most of them are in pretty good shape as far as each individual line item.  If you have any questions or concerns, I’ll try to address those."

Moving on to the last few items on the agenda, Miskelly said “8.B. and C. are thank you notes to the board from families there.  8.D. is a report from your family resource center, an annual report that’s required by her.  Pam is here, if there are any questions about that.  We appreciate the job that she does with that program.  8.E. is your school nutrition report, from Mr. Brooks.  8.F. is your Boardsmanship Awards Program, for your information.”

The agenda items being concluded, Miskelly then said, “Three or four things, just to bring your attention to.  Have met with the landowners across from McNairy Central and Pickwick Electric, Mr. Harvey Neal Smith, I think we have that worked out.  Pickwick Electric is going to take a couple of days, the last week of June, where it’s sort of in a dead period with school and programs, and move those poles, and then Mr. Smith, maybe the first of July, some time in July, can build that turning lane and hopefully give us a little relief there in the mornings and afternoons at the turning lane at McNairy Central.  So that is in the works.”

Miskelly next reported that one of the suppliers which had been awarded three bids for janitorial supplies had “sent us a letter, did not want to accept that bid for those three supplies, so we will award those three items to the low bidder that was left.”

Tennis Courts and Soccer Field

Miskelly’s next item engendered considerable discussion. “The town of Selmer has approached myself, and I’ve talked with Coach Day, and this is just for your information right now.  The town of Selmer has resurfaced the tennis courts which are used by the McNairy Central tennis program.  They are also looking at leveling and filling and reseeding and establishing some water at the soccer field in front of Selmer Middle School that we use for our soccer program, which does need some attention.  The cost that they project for the soccer field is about fifteen thousand, and the cost that they project, I believe they’ve already done that, for the tennis courts was about twenty thousand.  And they have approached me, and I’m sharing with you, to see if we would be interested in sharing that cost with them.  Maybe just us doing the soccer field and them doing the tennis courts, if our team, our school does use both of them.  I’ll just throw that out for your information now, and if you have comments or questions, obviously you can ask the now, but as we study that, see if you have any thoughts about that.  Again, I have mixed emotions.  Obviously, I do think it does need to be done, obviously, and our children, our students do use those facilities.”

“Does the city own that land, there?” Chapman asked.

“No,” Miskelly said.  “The soccer field, we own the land there, and they own where the—”

“But the walking track is around—” Chapman began.

Miskelly said, “That part.  Right.”

“Okay,” Chapman said, then after a pause he asked, “Is that our soccer team that uses?”

“Yes,” Miskelly responded.  “The high school.  McNairy Central.  That is where their soccer field.  Which obviously, over the years there’s been some concern about [unintelligible word].  Obviously, it would cost a great deal of money to build a soccer field, at the high school or whatever.”

After some discussion about the condition of the existing field and the cost of improving it, Miskelly said “they [the city] also use that field and play some, and I think that’s why they came to us, like I said.  They think it’s a joint adventure [sic].  You know, we use the tennis courts, we use the soccer field, they use the soccer field.  So I think that’s why they approached us about sharing the cost of doing both of them.  And like I said, their estimate was about twenty thousand to resurface the tennis courts.  I do know that’s a very expensive item.  They think this, like I said, filling and leveling and reseeding and a sprinkler system and all would cost about $15,000.  So, it’s just one of those things.  Do we want to put it on a priority list?”

“When would that need to be done?” Blakely asked.

“Well, obviously,” Miskelly replied, “it would need to be done this summer.”

Chapman asks about effect of parking cars on the area where the irrigation and drainage systems would have to be installed, and Miskelly said that was a problem that will need to be dealt with.

Chapman then asked, “Where can we come up with that kind of money?”

Miskelly replied, “You know, again, I, you know, it would just come out of a line item for improvements, or out of our budget for next year.  Again, as I said, it’s one of those things, priorities.”

“You don’t have to have an answer right now, do you?” Lacey asked.

“No,” Miskelly replied.  “You know, I’d want you to think about it and study it and give me some direction—

“Fifteen thousand—” Lacey began.

“Well,” Miskelly responded, “I think what they’re saying now, Mayor Robinson says, if y’all would do the soccer field for fifteen, we’ll take care of the tennis courts for twenty.”

“Could he give us a thousand on our soccer field so we could give it to Mr. Burns?” Chapman asked, referring to the fact that the city had voted not to put $1,000 into its budget for Burns’s One-to-One program.

“I can see so many pressing things,” Lacey said, in a doubtful tone, which led Blakely to remark that the issue didn’t have to be decided that night.  

“It needs to be decided by next meeting,” Chapman observed.

After some more discussion, Lacey said, “I wonder if there’s something that we can do for less than this to make it playable, or in better condition, until we can get to the point where we can put a sprinkler in.”

“Well,” Chapman said, “you know, the town of Selmer is, they’re redoing the tennis courts.  The public uses it, of course, but Coach Day and his team uses it, too.  So, they’re spending money in a time when I’m sure their money’s tight, too.  Especially if they can’t afford a thousand dollars to give Mr. Burns on his program, I would say it’s really tight.  So, I think we probably need to try to do something?”

“Is that a motion?” Lacey asked, but Chapman did not respond.

“Mayor Robinson,” Miskelly finally said, “like I said, he just communicated to me that they had talked to some people about doing this project, and he felt like it was going to cost around fifteen thousand for the soccer field, and around twenty— and his first question to me was, you know, would we split it?  Well, again, I don’t know.  And then he came back and said, ‘Well, if we did the tennis courts, would y’all entertain doing the soccer field?’”

Kennedy observed that the board would need to get bids for the project, and Chapman made a motion that the board solicit bids for refinishing the soccer field and install a sprinkler system—”And,” Lacey interjected, “also I think we need some kind of understanding in that motion that no cars will be driven on it.”—which was seconded by Blakely and passed by a unanimous roll call vote.

Joint Meeting with County Budget and Education Committees

Turning then to the “joint meeting that we had last week,” Miskelly began by saying, “I’m not the author, and so if you disagree with anything I say, or you question anything I say, you can certainly correct me.  I won’t take it personally.  I thought the meeting got a little, I don’t know the correct word, off track, I’ll put it that way.  My personal opinion was, that I thought the meeting was for us, the budget, the education committee, and the board of education to discuss the pros and cons and issues of raising the sales tax a half percent, to capture that money which would generate about $700,000 a year for items, improvement items.  And I don’t really know that we ever accomplished that.  And I take responsibility for that.  And, again, I’m not saying that, I don’t know how everybody feels.  I think, you know, that the times that we live in, and the cost of gas and fuel and all the things, you know, it might be a burden to put another tax on the public, and the people that pay the bills.  But I also think that $700,000 would do some improvements in our schools.  I also think that the question is, the question I have is, would we get that $700,000?  Would we have to share it with other people?  And would this, you know, if we don’t do it, at some point in time is the state going to come in and capture that money.  I think there’s some discussion there.  Again, that’s just some comments, you agree or disagree.”

Chapman said, “I think we need to, after all it’s ultimately up to the public to decide, whether or not to have the extra tax, of half cent.  Obviously, when the city of Selmer asked for it, they did not approve it.  But—”

“Quarter percent,” Lacey said.

“Quarter percent,” Chapman repeated.  “But, I think that if we make a case, I believe that, the last time the state of Tennessee had to balance their budget, that’s the way they did it, with sales tax.  And I just see them, the maximum that they can get is another quarter percent, I see them some time in the future getting that quarter percent, especially if their budget projections keep coming in below the estimates, as they are every day now, in the year.  So I think we need to try to make the case to the people that it would be good for the school system to have that to make improvements to our schools that we have to do somehow.  I mean, we can’t put this off any longer, to get some space for our teachers to teach and our students to learn.  So I think we ought to ask them to put it on the ballot, but I think it needs to be on, worded in a way that the, that it goes to the school system, and not like, in the past, some funds have gone for, you know, much needed fire protection.  I’m not saying anything against roads, or fire protection, or anything.  But I’m saying that if we have something that needs to be designated for the schools, it needs to be designated for the schools and then used for the schools.”

Smith spoke next.  “I believe this board would have to take action on whether they wanted to do that or not.  And I believe that we would have to specify, you know, what our plan is.  Exactly what our plan is.  What I mean is, with the incorporated cities and towns around, you know, we would have to include whatever we intend to do, we want that part of their sales tax, if that’s what the board chooses to do.”

“It doesn’t say that the county commission can authorize it to go on the ballot?” Chapman asked.

“The way we understood it the other night, yes,” Lacey replied.  “The county commission puts the referendum on the ballot, but it is up to us to go to the different municipalities and get them to agree to give it to the county and the school system.  I understand that in the past this has never been done formally or anything.  It’s just been passed on to us.”

“Probably been pretty easy over in Adamsville, hasn’t it?” Chapman said.

Lacey continued, “I understand from the meeting, though, that they were in agreement with us on the referendum, but they wanted to see a plan from the school system.”

Smith disagreed.  “That wasn’t what— I talked to Jai Templeton a little while today, and that wasn’t the way I understood, you know, he said that— I asked him, I said would it require action from our board, he said ‘Yes, there’s a specific spelled-out plan of what you plan to do with it.’  So, I don’t know.”

“So,” Chapman said, “we need to have our building plans, how much it’s going to cost, and how much the debt service would be on it and so forth?”

“He wasn’t talking about all that,” Smith replied, “but before we go to another meeting like we did with the education committee and building committee and all, you know, we’ll have to have all that.  But what he was talking about was just incorporated towns that, you know, we intend to go to and ask for their part.  And like you said, it would all go 100% to schools and so on like that.  If that’s what we choose to do.  Me, personally, I’m not for a sales tax increase of any kind, for anything.  There’s so many people in our county now, that, the largest majority of our schools are on free and reduced lunches.  That means they’re barely making it, most of the people are.  These people, retired people on fixed income, with gas, utilities and everything the way they’ve gone up.  I understand, we need money, but they need money, too, and the situation, with increases the way they’ve been lately, a lot of people’s not making it.  Not barely making it—they’re not making it.”

“The only thing is, if it’s a quarter percent, which, I don’t think—” Chapman began.

“Half percent,” Smith said.

“Huh?” Chapman asked.

“Half percent,” Smith replied.  “Nine and a quarter to nine and three quarters, that’s half a cent.”

“Is it a quarter, or half?” Chapman asked Lacey.  “You’re saying a quarter, he’s saying a half.”

“I thought it was a half,” Lacey said, though he had several minutes earlier “corrected” Chapman and told him it was a quarter and not a half.

Smith said, “It’s nine and a quarter now in McNairy County, in Jackson it’s nine and three quarters.  Which, nine and three quarters is the max.  A half cent sales tax.  The half cent sales tax we talked about would generate $700,000, probably.  Not the quarter cent.”

Chapman moved on. “I don’t think the county commission’s going to give us any more money any time soon.  I don’t know that’s a fact, but the beauty about asking for a sales tax is that the people decide it.  If they don’t want it, of course, you know, they can vote against it.  So I don’t see where anything is going to be hurt by doing that.  Other than the fact that somebody might say some of us are for a sales tax increase, which, I guess, when you put it that way, I am.  I’d like to see it used for our schools, because, only because I think that’s the only way we’re going to make any improvements, or build any new schools.”

Lacey said, “And when you look at over the past six years we’ve gone from 68% of the county budget down to 46% of the county budget.  I don’t know where we get the money from.  Mr. Miskelly has to be commended for getting the most with the least.  So I think as a board it’s our obligation to come up with a plan for funding, and submit those plans to the, not only the county court but also to the citizens of McNairy County, and show our ideas to them.  I’m not for any tax increase ever either, but unfortunately, if there is going to be a tax increase, I would much rather it go community than to the state of Tennessee.  That’s just my opinion.  I don’t think we need to give any more money than we have to to the state, because they seem to find ways to give to school systems, they reward school systems that are doing poorly, and they seem to punish those that are doing good.  In my opinion, that’s the wrong way to do things, but that seems what they do.  I would like for us to schedule, in the next couple of weeks, a building meeting, and we can discuss this further at that time, and I would want to suggest that.  But I do know that what Mr. Smith said is going to be required.  We will, the board will have to approach each municipality and be sure we have commitments from them.  And I don’t know how that commitment is done, that they will surrender that, if the county voted to increase the sales tax.”

“We would have to get the city councils, or city boards, or whatever, to agree to that?” Chapman asked.

Lacey turned to Kennedy, who muttered something unintelligible, then Lacey said, “Well, and it was brought up the other night, but no one could say, remember ever having agreed for any of their other things that’s been done.  Again, I think it’s a burden that we have to bear, and go out and do it.  I’m more than happy to do whatever is needed, but—”

Chapman interrupted. “I do think, though, that we need to have an understanding, and meet again with the county commission to make sure that, hopefully, we’re at the bottom of cuts in the percentage that we get from county funds, because I don’t know how we can keep on operating with them every year giving us a less and less share of, to operate the schools.  Because schools I think are the most important things that we operate.  And we, over the last ten years, had a program to build our roads, which we need good roads, too, in the county, but I think we need better schools than we need how many roads and so forth.  I think number one priority needs to be our schools, and I don’t, I hope that’s the number one priority of our county commission, also.”

Lacey then asked Miskelly, “How long before a meeting do we need to advertise?  Ten days, before we can have a meeting?”

“A called meeting,” Chapman clarified.

“Could we,” Lacey asked, “could y’all meet on Monday evening, the 16th?"

“What are we meeting for, now?” Blakely asked.

“Building plan,” Lacey replied.  “To gather.”

“To gather what?” Blakely asked.

Lacey replied, “To gather up a building plan, to, first of all, I think we review the building plan that we have in action, and then also look, work towards doing a building plan for the future.  Because from what I understand we’ve got to do is sell our need for money to the community and the board members of the county court.  And if we take the plan that we’re unified with, what I heard the other night was they’ve never turned down any request, and don’t intend to.  That’s to be defended.”

“Are you saying that they would give us money other than a sales tax increase?” Chapman asked.  “In your opinion?”

“Well—” Lacey began.

“No,” Smith said, “what I heard was, like 2011 was going to be the next opportunity when some of the debt service payment was paid off.  That’s what I keep hearing from—  That’s about right, isn’t it, Bobby [he was addressing former commissioner Bobby Murphy, who was in the audience], on debt service payments that will come off?”  Murphy’s answer was unintelligible.

“But if we had a plan today,” Lacey said, “there wouldn’t be money needed for a year, eighteen months.  So you can’t wait until 2011 to have that plan in place.  We need to go ahead and have our ideas, that we can get shored up, and we need to present that—”

“Well,” Smith interrupted, “unless we get something like we did before when we redid the buildings last time, all we paid was interest for a year or two there, and then we had some debt service paying off.  I don’t like to do that, but rather than a tax increase, there is other options like that.

“Yeah,” Miskelly said, “I think that’s the other option.  And if you remember Mr. Oldum, that has come a couple of times and talked about restructuring the debt payment, reextend that payment—”

“But,” Lacey interjected, “all that isn’t worth anything if we don’t have a plan, and that’s why I think we ought to get together and if we have plans we can, that’s five-year progress, and we have several different building plans to choose from, but we’ve not been able to be unified on any of them.  And I’d like us to give a strict and concerted effort to move forward and be unified and take it to the different communities, talk to them much like they did the road program, and we can go forward from there, because I, you know, we’re going to discuss it a year, that’s 2009, then you’re looking at 2010, ‘11, before you really ever get anything built.  I mean, we’ve got school buildings and facilities that need improvement right now.”

Smith said, “If we can get that building plan worked out, though, like you’re talking about, and by the time it gets fire-marshal approval, and get, you know, started, especially if we start a new school like we was talking about here in Selmer, I mean it could be 2011 before you need that first payment.”

“Right,” Lacey said.  “But we’ve got to get our part.”

“I agree with you,” Smith said.

The board members eventually agreed to hold a planning meeting at 6:00 p.m. on June 17, then the discussion continued.

“I’ve got to tell you,” Blakely said, “I’m sympathetic to some of the arguments Mr. Smith is making about the sales tax increase.  If there’s any other realistic means of funding the things that we to do, then I think we need to look at that.  I read somewhere, I think I’ve got the numbers right, that it costs $82 more now to fill up a mini-van with gas than it did maybe a year and a half ago, and $82 a month, and, you know, that’s— Half a cent doesn’t sound like much, but when you’re trying to put gas in the car—”

“It’s $700,000,” Lacey said.  “That is a lot of money.”

Smith observed, “When you stand in the grocery line and some of these people put groceries back because they don’t have money to pay for them, you know, it’s obvious things are pretty tight.  I’ve seen that happen—”

Chapman said, “I would be in favor of doing it the way Mr. Smith said, too, over a sales tax increase.  But I just thought, the only way we have to do that, and I’m looking at the state coming in, the possibility of them coming in and taking it anyway, and I just think that’s a good possibility.  And I’d hate to see them come and do that next year, and then us lose out on a chance to get that money locally.”

“I don’t—” Smith said.  “That may happen, but I just don’t see that happening.”

“You don’t think that’ll happen?” Chapman asked.

“I don’t think so,” Smith replied.  “If we had a crystal ball and could say that, I’d be all for it too, Tony, but I just don’t see the, that would be like, you know, taxing a tax, kind of, to me, and I just don’t see that happening.”

Lacey said, “What I understood from the meeting the other night—please correct me if I’m wrong, I’m wrong a lot.  I don’t mind being corrected.  But what I understood the budget committee to say was that when we paid for whatever we did, then they’d keep that money and do something else with it.  And, you know, if that money was going to be forever dedicated to the school system, you know maybe people would go for it.  But if it’s going to be dedicated to the school system to pay a debt and then it goes somewhere else, I don’t know …”

Smith said, “I don’t think they can take that money from us, because if there’s—”

Chapman interjected, “If it’s voted in for one thing, it has to be used for that.”

“Well,” Smith continued, “however we spend it, it’s money they give us.  If we spend it on school buildings, that’s what we’re spending on, right?  I may be wrong about that, but would that not cut their maintenance of effort?   That’s, if we could get that money?

“Would have to maintain the maintenance efforts,” Chapman interjected.

“Or,” Smith continued, “are they giving us that money and, or does it actually stay in the county general and never coming to us?  It’s in our budget, so I would assume—”

“Like Mr. Miskelly said,” Lacey interrupted, “it wasn’t exactly what I anticipated either.  It was very wordy, and part of that was my fault.  I thought it was clear what we were coming to visit with them was.  I guess it wasn’t clear.”

“Well,” Miskelly said, “I think the bottom line is, whatever is done, the school system’s going to pay for it.”

“It’s our responsibility, yes, sir,” Smith said.  “That’s right.”

“Like I said,” Miskelly continued, “from talking to a couple of people, we’ve had, we’ve gone over it, restructuring our debt is a possibility.”

Miskelly’s “Final Word”

After reminding everyone of the Monday afternoon reception (June 16) to recognize the long service of school system employees Wanda and Johnson and Bea Kaiser, Miskelly said, “Final word, then I’ll shut up.  I would like to thank you for your support tonight.  I would like to tell you that I appreciate the employees and the people of the McNairy County school system that sometimes even make me look good, and that’s hard to do.  And I appreciate the job that they do.  We’re finishing another outstanding school year.  Three of those people are here tonight are not usually here, and I appreciate them being here.  Didn’t know they were going to be here.  Ms Kaiser, and Ms. Graham, and Ms Vice.  And they do an outstanding job running the central office and helping me, and I appreciate that, appreciate them being here tonight.”  After listing several other individuals, he said “I appreciate what they do.

“I can also tell you that I get up every day with one job, and that’s to [he hesitated for a moment before continuing] help the McNairy County school system be the best it can be.  I can tell you that if I survive the next three years that you’ve recognized me with tonight, that it will be my last term as director of schools.  And I hope that I can leave this place a better place than it was when I got it.”  Miskelly’s remarks were greeted with silence.

But Wait!  There’s More!

“Any other board members?” Lacey asked, after Miskelly finished speaking.

“Where are we at on the building additions at Michie,” Smith asked.  “What stage are they at?”

Miskelly replied that they were “about 50%,” and he added, “Bethel Springs and Ramer, Mr. Vaughn told me the other day, about 50% completion of building plans.”

“Any other member of the audience—” Lacey began, but Blakely signaled his wish to speak “—I’m sorry.”

“I hesitate to mention this, but do we have an agreement for this weekend?” Blakely asked, referring to the Cars for Kids activities, which were to be held on school property.

Lacey and Miskelly looked at Kennedy, who said, “What?”

“A signed agreement for this weekend,” Blakely said.

“A release?” Smith asked, and Blakely agreed.

“No,” Kennedy replied.

“Have we ever had one?” Chapman asked.

“Well, no, but—” Blakely began.

“That doesn’t mean too much, does it?” Chapman said.

“What about a letter of insurance?” Smith asked, looking at Kennedy.  “A letter of insurance, do you think?”

Kennedy shook his head.  “There is a statute that says if it’s being used for certain things, that the board cannot be liable, or any member of the board cannot be liable, but, again, that’s one of those thing that probably should have had some follow-up.  I don’t know if they even asked for permission to use it.  They used to come in and ask for permission to use it.  I’m not even sure they’ve done that in the last several years.”

“Any other board member?” Lacey asked, trying to wrap things up.

“What do you think we need to do?” Chapman asked, ignoring Lacey’s attempt.

“I think we need something signed,” Blakely said.

“I think we need something signed,” Smith agreed, “or a certificate of insurance, is what I think.”

“Well,” Kennedy said, “it’s this weekend, so I’m not sure you’re going to get that done.  I think it’s this weekend, isn’t it?”

“Yeah,” Chapman confirmed.

“Do we need to do some kind of public announcement,” Lacey asked, joining in the discussion, “saying that anything that goes there needs to meet the school board—”

“Well, you got— “ Kennedy began.  “Here’s the problem.  You’ve got all kind of things.  Just think of this.  You’ve got Relay for Life going on.  Nothing’s signed for that.  And that’s just a school.  What about every school, you’ve got people using the ball fields to play on or to practice on and do other things, and we don’t have anything from all those folks either, so—

Lacey added to the list.  “We’ve got the Little Theatre this weekend, with a play they’re going to do. Arts in McNairy is doing a—”

“They should have an agreement,” Chapman observed.

“They usually sign an agreement,” Miskelly confirmed.

“—with the school,” Kennedy said.  “But I’m not sure whether it pertains to what the board does.  So, again, I go back.  You don’t need a policy to try to cover all this.  I’m not sure how you’d ever draw a policy to do that, in conflict, to cover all of those things.  But again, there is a statute that affords some protection from a liability standpoint.  But, you know, we have an issue always of [lists several events, most of which are unintelligible], it’s probably one of those things that should have been signed.”  He concluded by saying,  “The only thing that’s been done anything signed, is that field by the Dixie building, the Dixie building football field at McNairy Central.”

Blakely said, “I think we need to add that to the agenda for Tuesday night if we have time, to work something out.  We’ve got to do something.”

“We need a policy,” Chapman agreed.

“What if we sold the land?” Lacey asked.

“What?” Blakely asked.

“What if we sold the land to the city of Selmer,” Lacey replied, “and let them [unintelligible word] that burden.”

“I wouldn’t sell that land,” Chapman said, forcefully.

“What are we going to use for the kid’s playground?” Blakely asked.

“There’s a,” Kennedy began, “I had talked, I had talked with, there was some concern about the insurance company, what would they say.  I’ve talked to Harold Henderson, at TSBA, told him what we were doing in terms of that particular property.  He seemed satisfied with that.  [To Miskelly:]  Did they ever call you about that?  [Miskelly shook his head.]  He said if there were any problems with that he’d have his boss, and I forget his name—[Miskelly said, “John Evans.”]—John Evans call Mr. Miskelly.  But he just said he appreciated us thinking about that, that we was thinking ahead.  But again, let me give some thought about what takes place at the, at that field as well.  But again, you’ve got the city of Selmer using that for activities, [unintelligible word] and other things.  So there’s got to be, maybe some thought given to that."

Kennedy paused for a moment at this point, then he said,”I have one other thing, too.  At the end of this month, I will have represented this board for eighteen years.  It doesn’t seem possible.  It’s a long way from 42 to 50, I grant you.  And think that our firm, or an attorney from my firm has represented this board for over forty years.  I appreciate very much that opportunity, but all things must come to an end.  I think it’s time that I step aside as council for the board.  I plan on resigning as of the end of the month, and I tender that resignation to you.  There are two other, or one other, I guess two thinks if you count this issue about the property that’s out there.  We also have a little matter involving a classified employee that’s going on, and I’ll be glad to continue to do that, if that’s the board’s wish, and try and take care of that.  But I do thank you for that.”

Lacey again asked, “Anyone in the audience have anything?”  This set off a discussion of the need to replace the gym floor at the high school.

“I’m always for doing the improvements we need to,” Lacey remarked, “but kind of like we told the budgetcommittee the other day, we’re almost bleeding from every orifice we have with needs for these schools.  Without some help, I just don’t— I mean, I’m for doing it.”  He concluded by saying, “I need to be told where we can get the money.  If y’all can tell me, I’m for it.  I need to know where the money is.”

Chapman said, “I think we need to put it on the list and see where it falls in priorities and try to do it if we can.”

“Well,” Lacey said, “I think the gym floor is probably, probably one of the most used classrooms in school.  Has more classes on it, probably, than any other classroom out there.”

After more discussion, Chapman asked “What’s the estimate?” to which one person in the audience responded, “The low bid was one-oh-three-five”—that is, $103,500.

“Any other member of the audience?” Lacey asked once again, and Bobby Murphy responded with some further remarks about gym floors before saying, “I have one other comment.  I was a commissioner for eight years.  I’ve heard a lot of talk here tonight about spending money.  There’s about thirty public here tonight.  I guarantee you, the only way to raise revenue in the county is to raise the property taxes.  I guarantee you if we took a stock vote tonight, most of these folks would say no.”  He concluded by remarking on the need to educate the public.

Lacey had the final word—yes, the meeting did finally come to an end—of the evening. “And I think the board agrees that we’re going to have to sell whatever program we come up with to each community and each area,” he said, agreeing with Murphy’s observation.  “Any other comments from the floor?  If not, I would like to echo what Mr. Miskelly said a while ago.  We’re concluding a 2007-08 school year, and our administrators, our teachers, our staff, our support staff, bus driver, cooks, all of them, the parents, the children, again, had an outstanding year.  It’s something that McNairy County can be very proud of.  I think we have continued to impress, nationally even.  People see how little we do— how little we have to work with, and yet the great amount of education we do in this community.  Again, our ACT scores are great.  You heard tonight how our GED scores are outstanding.  We’ve got two high schools to be very proud of, and several K-4 and K-6 and K-8 schools that we’re very proud of, and I think y’all really need a pat on the back, and I just wish we could do more there.  I think Mr. Miskelly, we would all like to thank you for the job that you’ve done every year since you’ve been here, [unintelligible word] the balanced budget, and continuing to keep our fund balance where needs to be.  And again, thank y’all for coming, because it’s interested citizens like yourselves that make this board work right, and make this board do the things that are necessary.  Saying that, I’ll entertain a motion to adjourn.”