NEVC clears up Fiscal Year 2021-2022

by Johannes Brann

Held in the evening of Thursday, Feb. 22, the Northeast Vernon County R-1 School Board looked backwards as, at last, they are able to clear up fiscal 2021-2022 as well as 2022-2023, and look ahead as they approved the school calendar for 2024-205 school year.

All board members were present including David Bruce, Connie Gerster, Scott Pritchett, Deland Prough, Heath Brown, Heather Brown and Mike Newman. Also on-hand were Board Secretary Janice Graves, Elementary Principal Eric Rhodes, High School Principal Dr. John Lawrence, Superintendent Chris Holcomb, and Justin Wall with A-Lert Roof and Building Systems of Erie, Kan.

The Missouri Department of Elementary and Secondary Education (DESE) considers the school year to begin July 1 and end on the thirtieth of June, the following calendar year. DESE requires each public school district to hire a suitably accredited firm to perform an audit on the financial records and practices of the district for the previous school year. Failure to submit an audit by the end of December, following a school year, results in DESE withholding that district’s monthly per-pupil state tuition payments until that audit is performed, reviewed and approved by the district’s school board and submitted to the state.

“Yes, that’s right. We’ve not received any monthly state tuition payments since December last year. But in mid-January we received a partial payment of the property tax money and have been watching our spending carefully,” noted Holcomb in a pre-meeting interview.

But wait, didn’t the district have the 2021-2022 year audit completed in May 2023?

“Yes, yes he did,” said Holcomb, bowing and shaking his head. “But it turned out that the second of the three rounds of Covid funds the federal government disbursed to schools arrived late, and when they did they were miscoded. So when this was discovered, it meant we had to have a whole new audit performed with the only changes being on the total of federal funds received. So we couldn’t get the 2022-2023 audit finished and sent off until the previous year was fixed. So tomorrow I’ll send them both off to DESE and then we can receive our January and February state tuition payments,” explained Holcomb.

Each account number submitted to DESE contains 21 digits. The first three are for the particular “Fund”, then come four digits to indicate the account’s “Function”, followed by a further four to show the “Object”, which are followed by four more digits to indicate “Location”, then comes a single number to indicate the “Source” of the account’s funds and finally, there are five digits to show the particular “Project”.

June 2021 showed the R-1 District with assets of $1.28 million, liabilities of $61,769 and total net position of $1.23 million. The corrected audit for June 2022 shows the district with assets of $2.16 million, liabilities of 743,801 and a total net position of $1.42 million. June 2023 showed the R-1 District with assets of $3.13 million, liabilities of $1.04 million and a total net position of $2.09 million.

Following a page-by-page review of each audit, first the 2021-2022 and then the 2022-2023 school year audits were accepted by a motion approved by a 7-0 vote.

During a break following the open session of the meeting, Holcomb beamed saying, “I think we’ve finally put the 2021-2022 fiscal year to bed and I can hand my successor a clean slate.

Holcomb will retire as superintendent on June 30.

The board approved the calendar for the 2024-2025 school year. In reviewing the calendar, Holcomb noted, “You may remember we made a big change last year so we could get out in early May. While back then some staff had their doubts, it has proved to be very popular and so next year’s essentially will be the same.”

Students will be on-hand for 149 days plus two half-days with four “built-in” snow days. The first day of school will be Thursday, Aug. 22; Parent-Teacher Conferences will be on Thursday, Oct. 24. The entire last week of Nov. will be Thanksgiving break while Christmas break will run from Dec. 21- Jan. 6 with classes resuming on Jan. 7. Spring break begins on March 15 with classes resuming on March 24. Easter Break starts on April 18 with classes resuming on Tues., April 22. The last day of school, a half-day, will be Friday, May 2.

The motion to adopt the proposed calendar was approved by a vote of 7-0.

Holcomb introduced Mr. Wall to review the roof leaks at the elementary school in Schell City. A-Lert was the contractor chosen to put on the metal roof at the high school two years ago and put on the roof at the elementary school some 20 years ago.

Principal Rhodes and Mr. Wall described the leaks and several problem areas in the roof over the gymnasium.

Said Rhodes, “Not only did Mr. Wall make a thorough investigation, but he also made some temporary repairs for free to help us out.”

Said Holcomb, “A-Lert was the only contractor to provide a complete bid.”

By a 7-0 vote, the motion to approve A’Lert’s bid of $39,970 was approved.

When asked, Wall said, “The work should take about a week and while our summer’s fill up with big school jobs; I’m going to try hard to get it scheduled before all the spring rains come. I think we can baby along the old roof so you can get 50 years out of it.”

The respective principals reported the elementary school has 94 students while the high school has an enrollment of 95.