The Hardin County Board of Education approved multiple routine and significant items during its regular meeting on Dec. 20, including a comprehensive consent agenda, a contract to join ongoing social-media litigation and a payment-in-lieu-of-taxes pilot agreement with Blue Oval SK.

The board adopted the consent agenda on a single motion, approving a range of items that included the district improvement plan and school improvement plans for the 2023–24 year; a modified schedule for a student with a disability; the 2024–25 school calendar; Family Resource and Youth Services Center assurances for 2024–26; travel approval for the Central Hardin softball team; a $1,000 donation from the Hardin County Education Association for Family Resource and Youth Centers; a $1,600 donation from Farm Credit to Lakewood Elementary; employment and personnel actions; construction-phase renovation bids; and approval to retain the accounting firm Dean Dorton as district auditors through June 30, 2026.

Board members also approved the date, time and location for the board’s January 2024 meetings: the lunch meeting at Meadowview Elementary and the evening regular meeting on Jan. 18 at 6 p.m. at central office.

In separate votes, the board approved entering into an agreement to join social-media litigation through outside counsel identified in the meeting as the Bridal (or Bryant) Law Center; the board noted that participation would not obligate the district financially and that the district would be in place to receive any recoveries. "I move that we approve, to enter into the agreement ... understanding that it has no, we have no obligation financially or otherwise," a trustee said during the motion. The motion carried.

The board also approved a pilot agreement with Blue Oval SK, described at the meeting as a payment-in-lieu-of-taxes arrangement designed to provide district revenue where state or bonding arrangements otherwise reduce property-tax receipts. A trustee said for the record that under the agreement the district is not receiving less than it would on a standard tax roll. The board motion to approve the Blue Oval agreement carried.

Each motion was approved by voice vote after a motion and second; the board did not recite roll-call tallies in the meeting transcript. The board chair called for aye/aye responses and then said the motions carried.

These approvals were recorded as formal board actions in the meeting minutes; several consent-agenda items contain budgetary, construction and programmatic impacts that will proceed through administration and project-management channels.