Budget, policies, contracts lead Stigler school board items

By Pennie Embry, Staff Writer

STIGLER, Jan. 14 —The Stigler Board of Education dealt with budget items, school board policies and a contract renewal at this month’s regularly scheduled meeting Monday night.

During preliminary business, the board discussed and approved encumbrances for January totaling $19,706.01 for supplies, textbooks, travel and mileage reimbursement and insurance. Later, the board reviewed a summary of the district’s financial activities for December 2009, including more than $500,000 in salaries.

“As always, the largest part of our budget is payroll,” said Bill Self, superintendent of Stigler Public Schools. “And we intend to do everything we can to protect teachers and core classroom instruction. As far as what we are spending out of the general fund every month to run the schools, we have that capped down pretty tight. Unless it’s something we need, or unless we can get it under a grant, we just don’t buy it.”

A review of those expenditures supported Self’s statement; of the money encumbered for supplies this month, more than $9,000 was from federal stimulus dollars and grants, so did not come from state aid payments to the school or from property taxes. Stimulus and grant money paid for a new computer, computer smart boards and related supplies, as well as some textbooks for the district.

Other general fund encumbrances approved by the board included $3,332 to be paid to the Oklahoma State School Board Association for reviewing and revising the district’s policy manual. That manual was outdated and in many places was vague and needed clarification, Self said. The new, completed manual should be ready next month, but the board voted this month to adopt new school board polices regarding evaluation of the superintendent, conflict of interest, board member conflict of interest, board of education powers and duties and code of ethics for board members.

“These specific changes are ones we needed to approve now,” Self said. “Lawyers at the state school board suggested we use these guidelines that were put through the legislature last year, so we are updating our policies to reflect that.”

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