BOE hires two assistant principals

Diane Bresson will be an assistant principal at County Line Elementary School while Leah Sears will be an assistant at Russell Middle School. Both were already employed in the system with Bresson at Bethlehem Elementary School and Sears at Kennedy Elementary School.

Also at Tuesday night’s meeting, the BOE approved a tentative budget for FY11 at $90.7 million dollars.

All BOE members voted for the tentative budget with the exception of Dan Cromer. A final vote will be June 29.

“I think we stayed as far away from the classroom (with cuts) as possible,” said assistant superintendent for finance Ken Cato.

One item which has caused some concern among school system employees has been the reduction in the amount of insurance premiums paid for by the system.

“The Board of Education did vote to include in the FY11 budget a reduction in the systems portion of payment towards employees’ State Health insurance,” said superintendent Wanda Creel.

“The Barrow County School System currently pays an employees’ salary plus benefits. In addition to this, the Barrow County School System currently also pays $71.14 each month for each employee’s State Health Insurance.

“The school system will continue to pay $71.14 for each employee’s State Health Insurance for July, August, September, October, and November of 2010. However, beginning with the employee’s December payroll check, the school system will reduce the amount being paid for each employees’ State Health Insurance to $35.57.”

Creel issued the statement to make sure there was no confusion about the insurance process among school system employees.

In other business, Cato told BOE members ESPLOST revenues for May were $651,211.76, bring the total to $2.5 million for the year.