Houston Co. School Board Votes to Approve the FY 2025-2026 Budget; Approves Personnel Suspensions, Capital Improvement Projects, and More at the September 8 Meeting
By: Rachel Reniva
At the School Board meeting, while going over the capital plan, which was also presented for the 2nd time along with the budget, it was noted and praised that 25 capital projects have been completed in the past 5 years.
Then the school system started with 41 projects and now only has 16 left- that is not to say that more projects will not be added, just mentioning that currently the school system has 16 left to complete. The whole video of the in-depth estimated school year’s budget is available Here
These capital projects consist of projects like repairing or replacing the roof, updating and expanding the cafeteria, and updating the gymnasiums.
In a previous discussion with Superintendent Brandy White, I inquired about the bidding process. It is my understanding that the architect for the projects releases the bids, these bids are nationwide… anyone can submit a bid. The bids stay open for 2 weeks, after the 2 weeks, there is a bid hearing, and the superintendent and the board go over the bids. They may accept a bid or even reject it if they feel the bids are too high. Due to the recently updated Competitive Bid law, school systems may no longer reject all bids and subcontract out to third parties. Therefore, the school system still needs a bidder, according to the AL League of Municipalities.
As reported before, the estimated budget for FY 25-26 for utilities went down when utilizing. Past trends, the major reasons for that decision were that the HVAC systems have been updated and are working more efficiently, and the administration, students, and staff at each of the 12 schools have been making a conscious effort to conserve energy overall when possible.
The school board approved the budget and capital plan. One the budget is made available to the public, we will update this article with a link.
Item 8 was the approval of personnel sheet 1, which I believe was a positive action in some way or form.
At 37 mins into the meeting Item 9 was “Approve Personnel sheet 2,” and Mr. Vince Wade (the President of the Board) said, “Due to receiving a last min letter, I feel it’s pertinent that we do our due diligence and look into the findings of that letter along with the item that’s on personnel sheet 2, my recommendation would be that we move into an executive session to discuss good name and character before we make a vote of personnel 2.”
Mr. Collins motioned for the executive session, and Mr. Kelly seconded it. At that point, everyone in attendance was asked to leave the meeting.
Most attendants were the administrators of the schools. Assistant Superintendent Thomas and one other person were allowed to stay. They were in the executive session for a total of 17 minutes.
When attendees were allowed back in, President of the Board Mr. Vince Wade said, “At this time, we will have to come back out of executive session to go back into the official meeting. There was No decisions were made during the executive session all that was done completely was fact-finding we will make our vote in public like always” Then the motion was made by Mr. Collins to come out of the executive session, and it was seconded by Mr. Hollinger. At this point, the board was officially back and re-entered the regular meeting.
Mr. Hollinger motioned to approve “Personnel action” and Mr. Kelly seconded it. At that point, President of the Board Vince Wade asked if there was any discussion [on any agenda items, which they always ask before approval]?
Mr. Long said, “Yes, I’ll [abstain] from B…recommendation 1. b.” Mrs. Coleman was instructed to note that Mr. Long will be abstaining from voting on personnel sheet 2 item b. At that time, Board Member Lasseter asked for clarification- “Just to clarify, we are voting to uphold the superintendent’s recommendation?” Mr. Vince Wade clarified “that personnel sheet 2 is a page of suspensions, I guess I can say that, a couple of employees, at this time the recommendation of the superintendent will be to [suspend] both of the employees and we’ll need a vote on that recommendation, or we can modify or change his recommendation.”
Going further, the board discussed that they had just submitted a motion to uphold the recommendation by Mr. Hollinger, and the 2nd was Mr. Kelly.
Then, Wade asked the board if they had any other discussions. Finally, the rest of the board members voted to approve the Personnel Sheet 2. For the next 12 minutes, the rest of the items listed on the agenda were all approved by the school board.,
- Insta-raise was approved to be used for the school to help them fund raise.
- The school board approved before & after-school tutoring at the 6 six elementary Schools & the sixth grade at Ashford Middle School. This will greatly assist our students in continuing to meet the expectations of state testing and offer opportunities for students who will benefit from the extra help with their studies.
On Tuesday, Sept. 9th, I left a message with the secretary of HCBOE to Superintendent Brandy White for comment. Superintendent Brandy White Spoke with me via telephone, and here is a transcript of that conversation:
💬Rachel: What factors led the board to discuss the suspensions that were in the executive session, rather than it being open?
🗣️White: “Anytime that you are going to discuss someone’s good name and character they do that in private.”
💬Rachel: Can you confirm whether the personnel were teachers, staff, or administrators?
🗣️White: “We had a teacher & a bus driver.”
💬Rachel: Did you recommend suspensions related to misconduct, performance, or another reason-
🗣️White: “I’d rather not go into that.”
Author note: It is only fair to say that when someone is suspended, it is usually for some type of alleged misconduct.
💬Rachel: What are the next steps in the process?
🗣️White, “They have to serve their suspension, once the board approves it, and I, what I do is- you know anytime and I’m just speaking in general…Anytime we have a situation where we’re investigating typically I will place the employee on administrative leave, now I have the authority to put them on leave, but I do not have the authority to suspend them without pay without board approval, so the board has to approve that anytime I recommend a suspension that has to be the board… but until that happens, I can put an employee on administrative leave so that they’re not at school….If you think that an employee did something that was egregious… and it could be something in some situations, this was not one of those, but in some situations if they did something against a student or whatever or said something to a student that was, you know, warranted of a punishment… I could put them on leave until we had the board meeting so that they wouldn’t be around students at that time, but this…was not…a situation where we were concerned about them being around a student.
💬Rachel: Will this impact the students?
🗣️White: “We try to make arrangements, … anytime a teacher is not there it does impact the students a little bit.”
💬Rachel: Anything else?
🗣️White: “We have 825 employees when we have a situation I try to address it quickly and take care of that, again I think any company that has that number of employees there going to have some things to address, so we try to stay on top of it and for the most part our employees do a good job, but uh that’s not to say that they don’t make mistakes or mess up occasionally.”
💬Rachel: Right, we’re all Human.
