Previewing the Agenda for the 9/14 Special Meeting

The Board has scheduled a "special meeting" for Tuesday, 9/14, at 10:00 a.m. We can get into what is so "special" about special meetings another time. Suffice it to say that any meeting convened by the Board that is not a "regular" meeting (i.e. the monthly meetings, for which an annual schedule is published) is a "special" meeting.

Anyway, the need for a special meeting this month was discussed at the 8/25 monthly meeting. I mentioned in the earlier summary of the 8/25 meeting that the Board discussed summary financial information for fiscal year 2009-2010. The unaudited actuals report was a part of this discussion. This report is basically a summary of final revenues and expenses for the district for last year, which has not yet been reviewed by the district's auditor. The original plan was for the Board to discuss the unaudited actuals during the 8/25 meeting and vote to approve them so they can be sent to the county Office of Education.

However, Board members did not receive their copies of the unaudited actuals report (which is about 100 pages, by the way) in advance of the 8/25 meeting. Rather, they were provided their copies at the meeting. Therefore, the Board decided to defer voting to approve the report until members had a chance to review the report in detail. If time had allowed, I presume the Board would have waited until the next regular meeting (set for 9/22) to hold their approval vote. In this case, though, the district is required to submit the unaudited actuals to the county by 9/15. Therefore, a special meeting was required so the Board could grant its approval before the deadline.

While they're together, the Board will also discuss a federal education jobs bill reportedly signed into law on 8/10. District staff are now able to project that the new law will provide $235,000 for hiring or reinstating "school level services jobs." (An interesting aside into the weirdness of government - this funding is included in a law officially titled the "FAA Air Transportation Modernization and Safety Improvement Act". What does education funding has to do with the FAA? Your guess is as good as mine.)

To view the agenda or packet materials for the 9/14 meeting, click here.

-Rob