Did The Rock Hill School Board Tell The Administration to Protect National Board Pay?

At the Rock Hill School Board Work session on Monday, May 4, 2009, each board member gave their opinion to a series of questions such as; how much are you willing to take from the fund reserve?; how many days are you willing to furlough (reduce salaries) employees?; how much are we willing to let class size go up?; if there is a surplus from this years budget, where should the money be applied? and; do we believe in "equal sacrifice but not equal dollars?" Does everybody get cut a certain amount or a certain percentage?

The last question was the only one to get the same answer from each board member - Yes, we believe in equal sacrifice. The original budget had National Board Teachers having a bigger sacrifice. Yet, after the discussion, there were no questions to the board about where the money should come from to replace the $250,000 cut from National Board pay. I wonder if the significance really sunk in. This will continue to provide some interesting discussions.

In other areas, I should learn to ask better questions. We had a discussion on selling technology bonds - I asked what the impact would be on our capital debt millage? The first answer was: nothing - it would not affect our capital debt millage. My follow-up question was, how much would the debt millage go down if we did not sell the bonds - that answer was 4 mils. The reason for the question - it looks like a maximum millage increase for operations is possible - that would be 6 mils and would only apply to business (also rental property and vehicle taxes). If we could reduce the capital debt we'd minimize the impact. Another one of those decisions that has impact in the community and the schools.