Some school board members may be wondering what happened after they left yesterday's budget meeting.
As noted in today's article, school board members spent Monday afternoon looking for ways to reduce the budget by $39 million. The meeting went so long that the idea of streaming board meetings online went from being in the budget to out of it by the end of the discussions.
Things started off with board members being asked to pick up to three items from the list of new programs that they'd like to keep. Preserving the $200,000 to stream school board meetings online tied for the second-most favored option.
Under that option, the school board's main meeting room and conference room would be wired up so that the meetings could be streamed online. The broadcasts also would be archived with the ability to search by agenda topic, similar to what's now being done by the county commissioners.
But with all the cuts that needed to be made, Beverley Clark proposed dropping it from the budget.
Patti Head countered that they need to be able to stream and archive the board meetings so that they can get their message out to the public without relying on the media.
This led to a vote on keeping the item in the budget.
The vote was 5-4 with Rosa Gill, the board chairwoman, breaking the tie to keep the budget item. She was joined by Head, Eleanor Goettee, Kevin Hill and Lori MIllberg,
As the meeting dragged on, both Millberg and Goettee had to leave.
It eventually got down to the point where only $2.9 million needed to be found to finish the budget balancing. That's when Ron Margiotta and Clark called for a re-vote as one way to narrow the margin.
"It's a very cool thing," Clark said. "But it's something that will only be used by a small number of people."
Without Millberg and Goettee, the vote was deadlocked at 3-3 until Gill broke the tie. She flipped her vote and backed removing it from the budget.
Comments
CMS scores
Tue, 06/24/2008 - 14:11 — shank56Off topic from the Charlotte Observer online
http://www.charlotte.com/408/story/683832.html
"Huge gaps remain between white, Asian and middle-class students, who passed state exams at high rates, and their black, Hispanic and low-income classmates, who were more likely to fail. Likewise, the district's low-poverty suburban schools tend to top the achievement list, while high-poverty urban schools struggle.
For instance, Ardrey Kell High in the southern Ballantyne area had an 89 percent pass rate on End of Course exams, while four impoverished high schools that have been the focus of intensive turnaround efforts remain below 60 percent. In middle school, math pass rates ranged from 95 percent at south suburban Robinson to 24 percent at center-city Spaugh."
Never say that........
Tue, 06/24/2008 - 09:13 — WuptdoLooks like Ms. Gill is a graduate of the Easley School of Politics; vote for which way the wind is blowing at the current moment. Once again, 90% of the BoE(eR)'s "problems" would be solved if:
1) Fire 7 to 10 of the Top bureaucrats, i.e., clean house;
2) Followed the principles taught in their own "Code of Ethics;"
3) Realize that all the "social engineering" programs have failed;
4) Admit they are WRONG on so many issues, because realizing that you have problems is the first step to correcting them;
5) Be humble that you were elected to serve the people, not the "system."
http://www.wcpss.net/policy-files/series/policies/4005-su.html
AG
Tue, 06/24/2008 - 09:00 — interested (not verified)Could someone tell me what AG stands for? I thought that it meant Academically Gifted but now I realize the numbers are not right for that. Does it mean Average Grade? Thanks. Sometimes it is hard for newcomers to get the whole picture!
larger classes are illegal
Tue, 06/24/2008 - 07:39 — cybercris2they say "larger classes" because they don't think the publci will react to that as strongly but was it or was it not a problem last year when so many of our classes were out of compliance and waivers were denied? If larger classes are against the law how can they do it as a solution to the budget? Whatever happened with those waivers anyway?
Dr. Cris
They could have balanced the budget with one item....
Tue, 06/24/2008 - 07:24 — Anonymous (not verified)One item to balance the new budget:
MINIMIZE WAKE TRANSPORTATON & ASSIGNMENT DISTANCES instead of MAXIMIZING IT !
That single cost savings would have balanced the new budget all by itself (no cuts in AG or Language required!), but it wasn't even discussed by these blindfolded old-timer social engineering Zealots who would rather transportate kids instead of educating them....
I want a new iPhone
Tue, 06/24/2008 - 06:10 — Dadof3Hey I want a new iPhone. I can cost justify needing one until the cows come home. Armed with info, I went to my CFO (the Mrs.) and she dope-slapped me. Budget meeting adjourned.
So goes the budget process for most Americans.