LINCOLN PARISH SCHOOL BOARD

Ruston, Louisiana

REGULAR SESSION

Tuesday, January 7, 2020 10:30 a.m.

The Lincoln Parish School Board met in Regular Session on Tuesday, January 7, 2020, at 10:30 a.m. at I. A. Lewis located at 1000 Mitchell Avenue, Ruston, Louisiana. Members present were Ms. Debbie Abrahm, Mr. Mike Barmore, Ms. Lisa Best, Mr. David Ferguson, Dr. David Gullatt, Ms. Lynda Henderson, Mr. George Mack, Jr., Mr. Joe Mitcham, Mr. Hunter Smith, and Ms. Susan Wiley.

Members absent were Mr. Otha Anders and Mr. Danny Hancock.

                        President Mitcham called the meeting to order and Mr. Barmore delivered the invocation. Ms. Best led in the Pledge of Allegiance to the American flag.

Upon a motion by Dr. Gullatt, seconded by Ms. Henderson, the Board unanimously voted, by roll call, to amend the agenda deleting the words “Ruston High School Band Building” from item 8.1, but retain “permission to advertise for the Eco Car Building” project.  

Upon a motion by Dr. Gullatt, seconded by Ms. Henderson, the Board unanimously voted to adopt the agenda as amended.

Upon a motion by Ms. Abrahm, seconded by Mr. Mack, the Board unanimously voted to approve the minutes of the Regular Session held on December 3, 2019, as distributed

.

The Election of Officers for 2020 was the next item on the agenda.  Mr. Mitcham turned the floor over to the Secretary, Mike Milstead. Mr. Milstead declared the floor open for nominations for President for 2020.  Ms. Wiley nominated Mr. Mitcham. Hearing no further nominations, Mr. Barmore moved that nominations cease. Mr. Milstead declared the time for nominations closed and asked for a vote. Mr. Mitcham was unanimously selected as President for 2020 by a show of hands. 

Mike Milstead asked for nominations for Vice President for 2020. Ms. Best nominated Ms. Henderson.  Hearing no further nominations, Mr. Barmore moved that nominations cease. Mr. Milstead declared the time for nominations for Vice President closed and asked for a vote. Ms. Henderson was unanimously selected as Vice President for 2020. 

Mr. Milstead congratulated the returning officers.

Mr. Mitcham and Ms. Henderson thanked the Board for their vote of confidence. Mr. Mitcham reminded the other members that he has an open door policy and welcomed them to contact him anytime.

Ms. Keshia Osborne, Principal of I. A. Lewis, introduced herself and welcomed everyone. She shared that she had been the principal of I.A. Lewis for two years and was previously at Ruston Junior High. She said it was an honor to serve as a team member of Lincoln Parish School Board. She thanked the board for all they do for the students. Ms. Osborne introduced her administrative team, Assistant Principal Patrick Finley and Instructional Facilitator Melanie Lewis. 

Mr. Mitcham thanked Ms. Osborne for hosting the meeting and thanked her for her hard work. Mr. Smith echoed President Mitcham’s remarks.    

Following a month of studying two policy revisions, Lisa Bastion, Chief Academic Officer/Assistant Superintendent, asked board members to approve the proposed changes to the policy manual.

Upon a motion by Mr. Smith, seconded by Dr. Gullatt, the Board unanimously voted to approve revisions to Student Fees, Fines, and Charges – JS and Substitute Personnel – GBRJ.

Ricky Edmiston, Supervisor of Auxiliary Services, voiced that bids were opened on December 27, 2019, for the Ruston High School Switchgear Project. All three bids received were over the budgeted cost of $223,000.00. After reviewing the bids, district administration recommended acceptance of the lowest responsive bid of $255,232.00 submitted by Twin City Electric of West Monroe, with the agreement by the bidder to enter into a change order to reduce the cost of the project by $44,530.00. Project engineer Purtle and Associates has assured the owner’s change in specifications to swap out copper wiring with aluminum wiring will have no impact on quality or performance. Total cost of the project after the change order would be $210,702.00. Superintendent Milstead explained that the RHS administrative offices would relocate to the New Tech building for the summer while the main campus would go without power for parts of the summer project.          

Upon a motion by Mr. Smith, seconded by Ms. Abrahm, the Board unanimously voted to accept the bid of $255,232.00 submitted by Twin City Electric and award them as the contractor for the Ruston High School Electrical Switchgear Replacement with agreement to the change order reducing the project cost by $44,530.00

James Payton, New Construction Supervisor, reminded board members that preliminary plans for the Eco Car building were discussed at a previous board meeting. The building was destroyed by the April 25, 2019, tornado. The architect and engineer have now completed the construction documents for the building. Mr. Payton explained that most of the funding for this project would come from the insurance carrier paying for the recent tornado damage, but not the cost for a new concrete slab. A decision had been made to relocate the new Eco Car building closer to the main campus instead of near the football stadium; therefore, the insurance carrier would not pay for the cost of the slab.  In addition to housing the Eco Car program, it will also house a physics classroom. The cost of the slab will be $45,000.00 - $50,000.00; the total budget of the project is about $200,000.00.        

Upon a motion by Ms. Best, seconded by Mr. Mack, the Board unanimously voted to grant permission to advertise for bids on the Ruston High School Eco Car Building.

Juanita Duke, Business Manager, reported that a new web-based Recruiting, Absence Management, and Auto-Substitute Calling system was implemented at the start of this school year. Currently, principals and supervisors are maintaining and reviewing daily paper sign-in/out sheets for certified staff and paper time clock reports for support staff to verify attendance. Then they must confirm in the Absence Management system any absences that occur have been officially reported. The second phase of the implementation would involve adding an employee Time and Attendance management module to the new web-based system that would consolidate these functions within one system. The new system would require an upgrade to the time-tracking equipment currently in place at all schools and administrative locations.  

Upon a motion by Ms. Wiley, seconded by Mr. Smith and Ms. Abrahm, the Board unanimously voted to authorize administration to request proposals for the replacement and installation of employee time-tracking equipment.       

                        Ms. Bastion asked board members to study revisions to four policies, DFD – Tax and Bond Elections and Sales, GAEAA – Sexual Harassment, GBN – Dismissal of Employees, and GBRL - Holidays until the February meeting. She encouraged board members to contact her if they had any questions. 

                        In her Personnel Report, Dr. Doris Lewis, Human Resources Director, verbalized:

1.      Retirement of Cathi Cox-Boniol, Lincoln ACHIEVE Coordinator effective December 21, 2019; and

Joyce Crowe, secretary at the Youth Rescue Center, effective January 1, 2020. 

2.      Resignation of Christine Whan, ELA teacher at Ruston Junior High, effective December 21, 2019.

3.      Employment of the following effective January 6, 2020, unless otherwise noted:

Jamie Hancock, special education teacher at Choudrant Elementary, due to increased special education needs;

Cheice Thompson, pre-k teacher at LPECC, due to a new grant position, effective August 7, 2019;

David Mahaffey, math teacher at Ruston High School effective December 19, 2019, replacing Jackson Colvin who resigned;

Sydney Phillips, ELA teacher at Ruston Junior High, replacing Christine Whan who resigned; and

Jonathan Kelly, math teacher at Simsboro School effective December 6, 2019, replacing Joshua Legendre who resigned.

4.   Retirement of the following:

      Mickey Fitzgerald, bus operator in the Ruston area, effective October 3, 2019; and

      Sherwood Payne, bus operator in the Ruston area, effective October 9, 2019.

5.   Resignation of Michael Gragg, bus operator in the Ruston area, effective December 2, 2019. 

                        Ms. Duke called attention to figures on the December 2019 sales tax report and said that collections were up 12.3% over this month last year. She reminded board members that all sales tax collections from the Department of Motor Vehicles were not received last month due to cyber threats the state received. This month’s collections include about $192,000 from the DMV not reported last month. Overall year-to-date collections are up 2.61% over this time last year, which is in line with budget estimates. This is good news to report on collections to date.       

                        In her financial update for November 2019, she reported that the Maintenance & Operation Funds were still running at a deficit.  LPSB received a small collection of 2019 property tax payments in December, but will receive the “lion’s share” of property tax payments this month (January). Total fund balance of all reported funds was $24.1 million and the total unassigned fund balance was $6.6 million, which is about 9.52% of total reported expenditures for the year.                      

Moving on to the health plan report, for the month of November 2019, Ms. Duke stated that total administrative costs were $1.9 million year-to-date and total claims expenses were $10 million year-to-date. Compared to the prior year, claims expenditures to date were down 3.4%. November claims paid were $941,000, which is slightly higher than the monthly average so far this year.

                        Mr. Payton narrated several photographs and gave the following construction update:   

1.      Very little work was done last month at the Choudrant Pre-K site due to the holidays and weather. Because the new building was added on to the end of the existing building, the State Fire Marshall required a “4 hour” firewall to be constructed. Special UL rated blocks are ordered but not in yet. The 5,000 sq. ft., four-classroom building would be ready when school starts in August 2020.                 

                        2.   The asphalt carline road at Choudrant Elementary has been “hooked up” to the driveway of the school. The project was now complete.         

3.      The 49-space parking lot at Simsboro School was also complete. It turned out very nice, the Board and Simsboro should be proud. As of this morning, it was nearly full to capacity.

                        Mr. Duke introduced two reports that have been filed with the Municipal Securities Rule-Making Board as required under the continuing disclosure agreements entered into with purchasers of its general obligation bonds sold to the public for Ruston School District No. 1 and Choudrant School District No. 6.  This annual reporting is a requirement of the Security and Exchange Commission for municipal bonds that are sold publicly.  She stated this is a new report to the Board even though these reports have been filed annually by December 31^st since the issuance of these bonds. This information was being provided for information purposes only. The reports provide investors with certain current key operating information for use in making informed buy or sell decisions regarding the bonds that continue to be openly traded on the municipal securities market.  The reports contain key operating information about each taxing district, such as tax collection performance, changes in financial reporting methods, millage rates within the taxing district, and a list of top ten taxpayers.  She reported that there are outstanding bonds in the Simsboro School District No. 3 as well; but because these bonds were sold in a private sale, the continuing disclosure requirement does not apply.

She reported that the filing of the 2019 annual reports for the Ruston and Choudrant districts is complete with the exception of the submission of the audited financial statements, which will be filed as soon as the audit report has been approved by the Louisiana Legislative Auditor.

In a Report of the Superintendent, Mr. Milstead said:

                        1.   Invitations to the Student of the Year/Teacher of the Year Awards program had been placed in board members portfolios. The program would be at the Civic Center on Monday, January 13, 2020, at 6:00. He urged board members to attend.   

                        2.   Annual Board member training will be offered February 11, at the central office. Board members are welcome to also attend the LSBA Conference if they so desire.

                        3.   The second semester began Monday, January 6. This semester is important related to test scores and how students perform this spring. This is a major component of our School Performance Scores, especially in grades 3-8. At the high school level, testing is a 50% component.  Our students are learning at a very high level. Supervisors, principals, and teachers are doing an awesome job. We are doing what we need to do, but we always want to be better. We are proud that we are the highest performing school district in north Louisiana.       

4.      Cathi Cox-Boniol retired last month. It was hard for us to see her go, she has been the only ACHIEVE employee in Lincoln parish. We are presently looking for her replacement. The job description is being re-worded to make it more of a media job instead of handling some of the items Ms. Cox-Boniol will continue to handle. She will be the emcee next Monday at the awards program. If any of you see her, please express your appreciation for her work and all she has done.   

5.      Please keep those deployed to Iran in your prayers. Several local service members deployed are past graduates of Lincoln parish. We hope they will all be back home soon. Once again, keep them on your mind and in your prayers.   

                        After a comment by President Mitcham and upon a motion by Ms. Best, the meeting adjourned at 11:07 a.m.

_____________________________                    _____________________________

Mike Milstead, Secretary                                   Joe Mitcham, President