Giles County school board approves budget amendments, accepts $5,000 TVA STEM award and OKs girls soccer field trip

At its Aug. 5 meeting the Giles County School Board approved several fiscal and program actions: a budget amendment to carry forward funds for science textbook adoption and other carryovers, reallocations to address classroom and maintenance needs, funding to add three educational assistants to special-education classrooms to comply with IDEA requirements, amendments to record state teacher bonuses, and coverage for a late cafeteria vendor bill.

Finance staff explained the textbook purchases were part of this fiscal-year close and must be rolled into fund balance and then back into the new-year budget. CTE and staffing transfers were noted as account-code changes that require board approval and county-court signoff. On teacher bonuses, staff said the state disbursed $2,000 per eligible employee plus employer shares for Social Security, Medicare and the Tennessee Consolidated Retirement System; hybrid employees hired after Feb. 2015 received $2,333. Staff told the board bonuses will be paid with the August 15 payroll, and 12-month employees will be caught up on the 30th.

The board also approved acceptance of a $5,000 TVA STEM robotics award to employee Missy Locke. Dr. Beard said board approval is required to accept grant money and move it to finance for disbursement.

Separately, the board approved a late-submitted field trip request for the Giles Canyon High School girls soccer team after the coaches finalized the roster. All votes referenced in the transcript were taken by voice; the meeting record in this transcript does not include a roll-call tally by name.

Several amounts in the transcript were unclear or garbled when read aloud (some carryover dollar figures appear inconsistent in the audio transcript); where a precise carryover figure was not clearly stated in the record the article reports the board—s action and flags specific dollar totals as "not specified".

Next steps: staff will present budget details to finance and to the county court as required; the board scheduled a school budget meeting for Friday following the vote.