Stephens County School Board Approves Report That Includes 28 Terminations

The blood letting continues in the Stephens County School System.
On Thursday, the Stephens County School Board voted 6 to 1 to approve a human resources report that included 28 terminations and one resignation.
School board member Rodney Moore, Jr. was the lone vote against the cuts.

All of the terminations take effect on February 4 and all of the cuts approved today are of classified personnel.

Thursday’s massive personnel reduction is part of a larger series of cuts that started on Tuesday, when the Board announced the elimination of the Crossroads alternative school program, along with its entire staff, and also added seven more furlough days to the current school calendar.

Furlough days are days without pay.

Earlier, Stephens County School Superintendent Bryan Dorsey said years of financial mismanagement by his predecessor resulted in a current school budget with no reserve fund and in major financial distress.

“That we now surprise emergencies. That we have no air conditioners to go out. That the state doesn’t go up on anything that we didn’t already know about. That the utility rates don’t increase. That diesel doesn’t go up. It takes a lot of things into consideration for all of this to continue to work out. We have been put in financial peril.”
Stephens County school officials say the system needs about $1 million in local tax revenue each month in addition to other funding sources just to pay its bills each month.

And because most of that revenue comes in in the fall, almost all of the local tax revenue collected last fall is already gone.

Dorsey said that means the school system will have to borrow another $7 million dollars in February to cover the million-dollar gap until local tax revenue comes in again next fall.

But he said, it won’t help much and the board can’t afford to wait to make the cuts until the end of the school year.

“Because our employees are mostly ten month employees, this year’s budget staggers through September. So, we have to make adjustments to see enough change, or if you wait to July 1st, there’s not but one or two months to get all that revenue back. It’s physically impossible.”

The Crossroads alternative school is also expected to close in February.

Students will be transferred to classes at their regular school.