AMERICUS —

AMERICUS— The Sumter County Board of Education passed a spending resolution for the month of July at their monthly meeting Thursday night. Like other school systems across the state, the schools budget will not be ready by the July deadline, though a tentative budget will be in place. Finance committee Chairman Mike Busman said, “Since we do not have the budget ironed out, we are real close, but we have to pass a spending resolution.” Superintendent Dennis McMahon added a comment before the vote was placed explaining why the budget was not ready. “Two reasons why we are not ready is one, the county hasn’t given us all the figures, the tax digest, etc., and we do not know what the state is going to do.” McMahon went on to explain that additional money could be cut from the state budget which could impact school systems statewide.

The board also approved a plethora of personnel decisions, including the promotion of Valerie Roberts, Principal of Sumter County Middle School to Assistant superintendent, effective June 22nd. The board also approved the resignation of Connie Wise, Principal of the Early College program. (A full list of retirements, resignations, new hires, transfers and family medical leave is available on our website www.americustimesrecorder.com as an online extra.)

At last months meeting, the board split their vote on the hiring of Parrish Construction Company as the system’s construction management firm. The vote forced the board to table the passing of roof bids for Sarah Cobb Elementary School. The property committee brought up the reconsideration of Parrish at the meeting which once again splintered the board.

Board Chairman Donna Minnick, started the discussion saying, “I don’t feel that it was fully discussed. We shouldn’t have been surprised, so I think that all the reservations and any problems need to be discussed at this time.” Board Member Alice Green voiced her opposition, saying “It was discussed, and we stated the problems. We said that we feel like we didn’t need a construction manager to get this done, do you remember that?” McMahon interjected by talking some about the Archway Project, and how they could help in the design of the roadways at Sumter County Schools. McMahon went on the say “We need to look into getting an architectural firm to look at the roof, and make sure that everything is done to proper procedure.” After more discussion, board member Edith Ann Green said “I’m hearing Dr. McMahon asking us for the latitude to go ahead and get the Sarah Cobb roof done, so I move that we allow him to.” The motion was seconded by Michael Mock, and was passed unanimously. McMahon said that Buckley and Associates will be the architectural firm that the Board will be using.

Confusion arose with some of the board members when the Sarah Cobb roof issue came up again on the agenda. The board had chosen not to go with Parrish Construction as their manager, and to use an architectural firm, yet they still needed a company to perform the repairs to the roof. Board Member Doug Goodin, motioned that the Board approve a bid by West Georgia Roofing Company to fix 1/3 of the roof at Sarah Cobb. This issue confused some members of the board who thought that they had already voted on this issue. The vote failed with four being in favor, two being opposed, and two members abstaining from the vote. The board started to move forward, but Busman interjected saying “I’m sorry, we have to resolve this because their is a little contradiction here. We gave him (McMahon) approval to deal with the roof, but we were assuming that he was dealing with the architectural solely, to oversee it, and not the work on the roof.” Busman went on to say “If we don’t get this done, then the work is going to go into the school year and disrupt classes.” After another discussion the board voted unanimously to strike the previous vote, and let McMahon have control over the repairs to the Sarah Cobb roof.

The next meeting of the Sumter County School Board will be June 30th in order to approve the tentative budget.