In the regular meeting of the Nassau County School Board on Thursday, a question was asked about the millage thus far and what was in the December budget. Director of Business Services for Nassau County School District Ellen Harper shared a slide presentation with the report she receives from the tax collector’s office.
“We get it (tax collector’s report) approximately 15 times a year, starting in October through September,” said Harper.
“As of December 2023, for the additional voter millage only, the Nassau County School District (NCSD) has received $13.8 million so far,” said Harper. “We will get three more large payments and the last big payment will come in June, when they do the tax sales.”
The additional voter millage expenditures, as of December 2023, including salary and benefit costs, were shown on the screen as follows:
- Administrators, $163,378.08
- NESPA, $1,672,110.13
- NTA, $2,561,935.91
- Other support, $245, 121.38
- Grand total, $4,642,545.50
Chairperson for the Nassau County School Board Cynthia Grooms brought up a maintenance concern during open discussion.
“My primary goal as a school board member is to ensure the thoughts and wishes of the community is reflected in the management and operations of the schools and the district. As your school board member, my job is to listen and relay to the board and the superintendent what the community wants and needs for their schools,” began Grooms. “With that being said, apparently there were some changes on the westside regarding the maintenance men. In the past, their (work) trucks were located in their area; Hilliard had a place where their trucks were and Callahan had theirs. They would get in their trucks and go right to work. Changes were made in August that keep the work trucks in Yulee.”
According to Grooms, the issue had come to her attention at an unknown time in August 2023. Maintenance workers assigned to Hilliard and Callahan, approximately five employees, are required to report to the maintenance facility in Yulee in the morning to pick up their work truck and begin work at 7:15 a.m. They then drive their work truck to their work sites in Hilliard and Callahan to begin work at approximately 8:30 a.m. At the end of the day, these workers are then required to return the trucks back to Yulee by the end of the workday at 3:45 p.m.,” said Grooms.
“The calculations that I have is the procedure results in a loss of two hours and 30 minutes of work time per employee per day. They (maintenance workers) travel an hour and 15 minutes in the morning, an hour and 15 minutes in the afternoon, they have lunch breaks, they have two 15-minute breaks. So the total (loss) is four hours and 30 minutes now,” reported Grooms. “This results in the loss of maintenance services to schools, the loss of two hours and 30 minutes times 150 minutes at five employees comes to 750 minutes, which is about seven and a half hours of lost work time per day per employee.”
“With that being said, not only are we losing work time, but we’re using mileage on our vehicles … we need to look at the district vehicle replacement plan, look at the repair loss and fuel cost,” continued Grooms. “If there is a problem with the employees, that is a management issue that I don’t get into. But I would like for this to be looked into by the superintendent and the cost to the taxpayers and what we can do to resolve that.”
Angela Callahan, chief negotiator with the Nassau Educational Support Personnel Association (NESPA) bargaining unit, was in town on the day of the school board meeting and available to speak to the board on the issue brought up by Grooms.
“We were not aware of this issue,” said Callahan. “Our suggestion is we cease and go back to best practice. There was a past practice in place that is established and, if a change was made to that and affects the employees working conditions, that would need to be negotiated.”
Superintendent of Nassau County School District Kathy Burns and President of the Nassau Educational Support Personnel Association Marian Phillips both stated they were not aware of the situation.
“I would suggest that is a labor issue and the district, not the board, ought to get involved with speaking to the labor attorney about that,” said Brett Steger, attorney for the school board. “For a variety of reasons, least of which, the board doesn’t need to get involved in personnel matters.”
Superintendent Burns turned the spotlight to Kate Vitori, enrolled at Fernandina Beach High School, to be honored as a representative for the 2024 Sunshine State Scholar.
The Sunshine State Scholars program, according to the Florida Department of Education website, is a program where “each of Florida’s school districts selects their top students in the areas of science, technology, engineering or mathematics (STEM). Each scholar, along with their parents, will travel to Orlando for a program designed to bring together scholars from around the state, connect them with employers that specialize in the STEM fields and create a networking opportunity between the scholars and schools from Florida’s College and State University System.”
“Kate has many great accomplishments including her 4.61 weighted GPA, she shares a class rank of one out of 15 seniors, she has a passion for math and science and is a very busy lady,” said Burns.
“Kate is why teachers come to school every day,” said James Glackin who, along with her school counselor, nominated Vitori for the scholar program.
At the Jan. 25 meeting, the board also:
- Approved the minutes for the Jan. 11 school board meeting.
- Approved the personnel agenda and addendum.
- Approved to write-off two uncollectible checks in the school internal accounts totaling $45 dating from Oct. 11, 2022, to Dec. 15, 2022.
- Approved the vouchers and warrant report (expenditures) for December 2023.
- Approved 2023-24 budget amendments for the months of November and December 2023.
- Approved the monthly financial report for November and December 2023.
- Authorized the disposal of cannibalized and surplus equipment currently valued at $817.48 and reinstatement of property currently valued at $3,113.77 for Jan. 25.
- Approved request for student transfers received.
- Approved the following donations:
- $5,000 to the FIT program donated by Stay Better Vacations.
- $500 in gift cards to Yulee Elementary School from Nassau County Moose Lodge No. 2352.
- Approved waiving usage fees for Callahan Chaos Baseball Club.
- Approved waiving facility usage fees for Nassau County public summer program at Yulee Elementary.
- Approved Annetta Marian Phillips to attend the AFT Leadership meeting in New York, N.Y., Feb. 23-25.
- Approved Stephanie Jessee to travel out of state as necessary for the duration of her NEA (National Education Association) ESPLPI (Education Support Professional Leadership Institute) training.
- Approved leasing corporation creation to enable construction of new schools as needed in Nassau County.
- Approved proportionate share mitigation agreement with Breakers Townhomes.
- Request approval of the MOU with Starting Point Behavioral Healthcare for the Implementation for Prevention Service via Botvin Life Skills motion failed with the request of more information on curriculum.
- Approved the agreement with Constangy, Brooks, Smith and Prophete LLP designating Damon Kitchen to serve as chief negotiator for the board in collective bargaining for the Nassau Teacher’s Association (NTA) and Nassau Educational Support Personnel Association (NESPA) groups.
tdishman@fbnewsleader.com