Somers School Board reviews budget cuts, discusses future of football

The Lakeside/Somers School Board of trustees held two special meetings last week, the first one was held on Monday, June 4 at 6 p.m. and the second one was held on June 8 at 7:30 a.m. A special meeting had to be called on June 4 because Superintendent Casey Love’s last day as superintendent is at the end of this month and the board needed to appoint a new superintendent before then.

The board previously interviewed three applicants for the position and selected Paul Jenkins of Charlo but needed to have the meeting early enough to discuss the conditions of his contract before offering it. Unfortunately, Jenkins turned down their initial offer and an additional special meeting had to be held on Friday, June 7 at 7:30 a.m. for negotiations.

See related article for details regarding the other meeting and the district’s new superintendent.

During the June 4 meeting the newly reformed school board committee’s gave their reports to a crowd of approximately 40 parents and teachers, the other topics for the meeting were budget cuts and creating a volunteer staff policy.

The reason the volunteer staff policy was a major topic is because the district currently doesn’t have one and volunteer football coaches were allowed in the past without following state mandated policy. Additionally, the school is facing more budget cuts and had to make small cuts to multiple school programs.

Chairperson Courtney Shaeffer and vice-chair Tim Rogge make up the Finance and Federal Programs Committee, which is responsible for finding ways to balance the budget. The board of trustees breaks into various committees so that the committee members have time to research and gather information to present to the entire board so that the board can make an informed decision in a timely manner.

The finance committee’s proposal for balancing Somers School District’s budget included removing fifth-grade band and combining sixth through eighth-grade bands with one part-time band director.

Another possible budget cut was removing the football program, but due to Title 9 this would mean also removing the school’s volleyball program.

Title 9 mandates that school’s provide equal athletic opportunities for boys and girls, so when one gender specific sport is added or removed, another must be added or removed as well.

They also proposed combining third-grade classes and adding part-time teacher’s aids so that although the classes would be oversized by two or three students each the school could retain accreditation status. Another cut they proposed was redirecting curriculum funds and reinstituting pay-to-play for sports programs.

“All of these cuts combined leaves our budget in the black for $4,000, which is a smaller cushion, last year we used $10,000 of cushion,” Rogge said.

The recommendation from the finance committee was to keep the football program and make the coaches paid, eliminate sixth-grade basketball and fifth-grade band, redirecting curriculum funds and not rehiring some teachers.

The official budget for the upcoming school year does not have to be finalized and voted on until August and will go into effect for the 2012-13 school year.

Randy Gilpin was Somers Middle School’s volunteer football coach in the past along with Lakeside Elementary School’s physical education teacher Mitch Brinkman as the paid coach.

Gilpin was at the meeting on June 4 and said he could provide his own workman’s compensation coverage and the school would not have to worry about it. Gilpin’s primary concern was making sure the school has a football program available to the kids.

“We are all in agreement that we want the coaching staff as it is,” Shaeffer said. “But it needs to be followed by everyone. The best route we need to take is to speak to MTSBA (Montana School Boards Association) and create a policy that needs to be in place to support coaches, students and the schools and then have it in effect for all to follow.”

Essentially the board is not targeting football specifically, rather how the district handles volunteers as a whole for all programs.

On May 15, prior to the end of their terms on the board, the previous board of trustees’ final action was to approve a contract for Gilpin. This basically makes Gilpin an unpaid staff member.

Board member Sam Bagley said the board didn’t want to have attorneys tell them they have a liability on their hands because they didn’t follow policy.

“We don’t have a policy in place for high level volunteers and the previous board inserted a volunteer into the school system and I don’t know that that’s legal,” Rogge said. “We want to find out where all the legalities are so we can move forward.”