It was the same story about the income loss from oil and gas gross production taxes at this month’s Hennessey Board of Education meeting.

So far the school is down $813,775 (60 %) in GP income compared to the first five months of last fiscal year and “right now we cannot depend on it going up, so it looks like we will be down $1.5 million for the year.”

That’s what Superintendent Dr. Mike Woods said at last Monday night’s meeting.

About 84 % of the oil and gas gross production money goes to schools.

This month’s return GP was $138,379 compared with $289,986 last November. The total income for the first five months of this fiscal year is $564,714 compared with $1,378,488 last year.

“I don’t want to cause people to panic,” said Woods. “It looks a little brighter since we have enough money to make up that loss, so we’ll probably have to go into our fund balance (carryover) $1.5 million.”

The school had a $3.5 million carryover July 1 at the start of the fiscal year.

“What about the wind money?” asked Luke Lough, board member. He asked because about 68 % of the county ad valorem property tax goes to the school district where the property is located.

Woods said it’s still tied up in the courts since Enel Green Power Energy (Red Dirt Wind Farm) objected to the assessor’s valuation last year.

Most of the property tax money comes in January.

President Dr. James Matthew Matousek asked if they’d qualify for state aid.

“We’re a long way from getting state aid,” Woods said. “That reduction in gross production money will lower our chargeables, but we’d stillhave too much in collections...We knew there would be a reckoning at some time.”

The school had $2.27 million in the general fund as of Oct. 31 and $4.7 million in all funds, according to its financial report.

Security fencing at Early Childhood Center

Woods reported he’d ordered fencing and materials and obtained town permits for installation of security fencing and slab work at the Early Childhood Center.

The fencing is to assure that pre-k and kindergarten students cannot leave the property on their own.

That security matter came up after a 4-year-old student left that building unnoticed by school officials. The boy walked almost three miles in early September until a passerby unknown to him drove him home.

The school did not know he was missing until the boy’s mother called.

His parents were at board meetings in September, October and this month.

The boy’s father, Ryan Cooper, said he wanted to know what progress the school had made on exterior improvements since last month.

Woods said they had to amend the slab permit since they were cutting into the curb and the town doesn’t have a full-time onsite building inspector to approve permits, so it took more time.

There had been uncertainty last month about who would do the work and Ashli Cooper, the boy’s mother, asked Woods if the school would “be ready to install it when you get the fencing?”

“We’ll be ready to go,” said Woods.

Center Safety Committee

Parents were invited to a safety meeting after the incident.

Four parents and four teachers attended, said Early Childhood Center Principal Schovanec.

“We had a lot of good suggestions,” she said in her report to the board.

Some of those included: the need for the secretary to have a phone app so she can monitor the entry/exit door when away from her desk; tension increased on doors; overhead mirrors installed in the hallways, and in case a student gets lost, there are arrows pointing to the bathroom and to the office.

There was also concern that cameras wouldn’t be able to show a student, she said, “and I thought it would show a distance of four feet, but it turned out to be five feet.

“There are some things that we will have to work on and we continue to have sweeps of classrooms and bathrooms and have assigned seating at lunch, head counts in lines and in the classrooms, and teachers given absentee lists to check and re-check.”

Virtual teaching

“We got a real taste for virtual teaching when the electricity was out during the ice storm,” Woods said.

Some of the students had chargers, others didn’t, and some said they couldn’t get online, but managed to get on Facebook, he said.

Clerk Cristopher Choate said he was asked what parents could do if they didn’t have internet service.

Woods said they could use their phones and some teachers have even made pencil and paper packets for students.

Career Tech

Choate also asked if the school’s agreement with Chisholm Trail Technology Center would continue next year.

“We have a gentleman’s agreement,” said Woods, “but it’s not set in stone that we will extend the agreement another year at $1,000 per student for each semester.”

There are 26 HHS tech students this year and there were 31 last year.

Interns at The Dome’s walking tracks

Employment of student interns for $8.50 an hour brought comments from the board and the audience before it was unanimously approved.

Woods said several students had been interviewed and four had been chosen for consideration.

He said they wanted to open up The Dome to patrons so they could walk on the tracks during bad weather and students would check them in and be there to assist them.

Woods said he wants to get that started right away and plans to have it open from 6-9:20 p.m. on Mondays, Wednesdays and Fridays.

Patrick Griffin, board member, said they would need to work around basketball games.

Woods said they only scheduled five home games and they’d make it work because they’d promised the community a walking trail.

Griffin said an internship is intended to teach and mentor someone and he didn’t see how that would work.

Woods and HHS Principal Angela Avila said the students would have to be responsible and would learn how to interact with older adults and be able to help them in case they fell, or had an emergency.

Ryan Cooper said from the audience he couldn’t believe the school would pay students because that sounded like something the Student Council would do, or students who needed community service for the honor society, or their college admissions.

He asked what the minimum wage is and someone said $7.25.

Cooper then mentioned the potential $1.5 million shortfall this year.

“You’re going to be paying them to be on their phone,” said Ashli Cooper.

Avila said the students interviewed are good students and she believes they will be helpful to the older citizens. She said it wouldn’t be a conflict for them on basketball nights because they don’t play.

Other personnel matters

The board also voted to pay staffers Lisa Bossa, Jill Moery and Melissa Macy $16.50 an hour they’d worked as safety monitors at football games.

Woods said they were needed to keep children from playing football under the stands and next to the restrooms, making it difficult for fans to get to facilities.

Ashli Cooper asked what kind of authority they had.

Woods said they could tell him, or the principal, and they could eject someone from the game.

During a game Woods said he told one of the boys that he needed to stop playing there. The child told him he’d paid to get in so he could do what he wanted, Woods said.

Griffin asked Woods how he came up with that rate.

Woods said that was what they’d paid for that job before.

“Who did we pay?” asked Griffin.

“Dale (Pazzo, former resource officer),” Woods said.

“He didn’t keep the kids from playing under the stands,” Griffin said.

“You just asked me who,” Woods said.

The board also approved stipends for staff who attended training programs. As they have done in the past, they approved $1,500 stipends for certified and $750 for non-certified staffers.

New business request

Griffin said he wanted to change the meeting date, or time, for the Dec. 14 meeting because there would be a basketball game that night and he would like to attend. Griffin and Timberly Jech, business manager and board meeting clerk, have children who play basketball.

The item was not on the agenda for discussion or action and Woods said, “I’m not comfortable with that.”

Griffin said it wasn’t a matter of policy, just changing the time to noon, or meeting on another night.

“I was just aware of the conflict over the weekend after the agenda was posted,” Griffin said.

Woods said an argument could be made that both the meeting notices and games had been posted prior to the posting of the agenda.

The State Open Meeting Act reads: “‘New business; as used herein, shall mean any matter not known about or which could not have been reasonably foreseen prior to the time of posting.”

At the meeting

All members of the board were present: Vice President Joe Garrison, Lough, Matousek, Choate, and Griffin.

Garrison was at the meeting via Zoom video conference and Choate came in about 10 minutes after the meeting started. Also at the board table were Woods and Jech.

Principals in the audience were Barry Crosswhite (elementary), Schovanec and Avila. Other staff there were Paul Hix, athletic director; Todd Cameron, computer technician/network administrator, and Teresa Hugaboom, pre-K teacher.

Also in the audience were Chandra Seiger, Damian Hugaboom, and the Coopers.