| Royd Hatt and Marie Guymon Johnson take their oath of office at the school board meeting to begin 2007. | |
The Emery County School board began its 2007 series of meetings with the first one at Ferron Elementary. The first item of business was to install Jared Black as the business manager for a two year period. The re-elected school board members were then sworn in for their four year terms. Marie Guymon Johnson represents Huntington and Royd Hatt represents Green River, a portion of Emery and Cleveland residents are also in his district.
In personnel matters, Linda Wilberg was approved to be a special education assistant to work with a special needs student.
The board approved a trip for the honor choir which consists of five Canyon View Junior High students and nine San Rafael Junior High students. The choir will go to Jordan High School on an overnight trip where they will perform. A combined Valentine’s dance for the junior high students of both schools was approved.
The board approved the enlisting of a benefits consultant. This consultant will be available to handle questions from the employees regarding their benefits and related matters. This cost will be $30,000 per year and the contract is for a period of three years.
This benefits consultant will also prepare a sheet on each employee with the income and benefits outlined and any payouts for that employee.
District employees will be able to contact the consultant and be in communication with people they are familiar with as some of the employees have associations with Emery County; including Amy Luke formerly of Green River.
Black reported the district has several working committees right now that are addressing various issues at this time. The OPEV committee meets regularly to discuss early retirement and all the requirements associated with this process. Black said they are very concerned with doing things the right way and requirements have changed and also the number of retirees has gone up dramatically and they are staying abreast of all developments in this area. OPEV stands for Other Post Employee Benefits.
Black also requested permission to hire a consultant on an hourly basis for any questions that come up in regards to these early retirement and other issues.
Ray Bartholomew is an auditor and trainer who charges $180 per hour and the estimate was five-10 hours of use per year. Bartholomew is also an expert in GASB laws and regulations.
Doug Johnson and Wayne Roberts, technical personnel for the school district made a presentation requesting a lane change for their services to the district.
They did a comparison of salaries for other computer technicians in other school districts and in the business sector. They explained to the school board that technology has changed so much in the last few years and continues to change at a rapid pace. Many more job responsibilities have been added to their work loads each year.
The school district has three employees for computer technology work. Roberts read from a list of their job description which was last updated in 1991 and how antiquated the description was now in 2007.
More work is completed on the computer than ever before. All of the student records, testing, accounting for schools and other services have been added which add to the responsibilities of the computer techs. The heating systems for the schools have been computerized and are programmed by the technicians as well.
They service 1,000 computers in the district. In talking to other districts they reported they have one computer technician for every 500 students and in business it’s one computer technician for every 50 employees and in the Emery district the ration is one technician for every 800 students.
Another additional responsibility has been the surveillance system in place at the high school which has to be kept in good operating condition. They have also put a projector system in every classroom for every faculty member. Security systems are also going into place at Canyon View and San Rafael Junior Highs and Green River High.
The Emery district techs are at $20.13 per hour and would like to change lanes and over a period of years they could work up to $25.77 per hour. If the board approves the lane change they would receive a .35 cents per hour raise when the lane change comes into place.
The technical manager at South Sanpete receives $37.56 per hour, a state employee as a technician two receives $33.35, in the Carbon district the pay is $29.08, Cache district it’s $29 and in North Sanpete it’s $25.77, in Ogden a system engineer receives $23.76. Some of the districts have created technical salary scales for their tech employees.
Roberts and Johnson said they really enjoy working with the kids and they have a high satisfaction rate at the schools.
The school board determined they will look at the information presented and will take it under advisement and make a decision at a later time.