Schools

Cherokee To Add More School Days, Privatize Grounds Services

The Cherokee County School Board learned the school district would be able to restore two additional classroom days

Editor's note: The story has been updated to include two .PDFs from Cherokee County Schools that address privatization and offers a comparison of budget solutions other metro Atlanta districts have undertaken. 

Nearly a month after announcing they'd reduce furlough days from eight to six, the Cherokee County School District has more plans to expand upon that promise. 

Due to further budget cuts, the district will be able to restore an additional two classroom days for its students, bringing its school year calendar from 175 to 179 days.

Find out what's happening in Canton-Sixeswith free, real-time updates from Patch.

Correspondingly, the district will be able to reduce the number of furlough days from eight to four total for its employees. 

Petruzielo' made the announcement during the School Board's meeting on Thursday, which was greeted with applause and praise from the audience.

Find out what's happening in Canton-Sixeswith free, real-time updates from Patch.

He said the district will be able to make those changes based upon his recommendation to outsource custodial services employees starting in fall 2013 as opposed to making the change in January. 

"This is not something that we want to do," he added of the outsourcing of both custodial and grounds employees. The board on Thursday approved a contract with Seasonal Designs to perform grounds maintenance for the school district for $499,980.

The move affects eight employees, two of which have opted to retire from the district. The remaining six would most likely be offered positions in other areas of school district operations.

The change is expected to save about $100,000 in the upcoming fiscal year.

Staff is currently scrutinizing requests for proposals the district solicited with regards to possibly outsourcing custodial services. The district had five proposals submitted, four of which all came under a quote to perform the necessary work for $6 million per year.

All requests also indicated they would be able to make the transition as early as fall 2013 as opposed to January 2014. Another positive note is the district said all RFPs contained assurances that they would offer all school district custodial staff members positions with benefits in their companies.

The district initially said it believed it could save $1 million in the upcoming budget with the outsourcing, but it's now predicting it could save $2 million by the promise of the companies to make the transition in fall 2013. 

Board Member Robert Wofford cautioned the move to outsource custodial staff. He noted it was a "disaster" when the district years ago tried to outsource custodial staff. 

The company the district chose, he said was "more interested in collecting fees and cutting services." 

The board will review the proposals to outsource the custodial service during its called July 24 meeting.

The board also voted 6-1, with Kelly Marlow opposing, to table its proposed fiscal year 2013-14 budget, which is required to give the public time to review and scrutinize the budget. Marlow had expressed concerns about the lack of public hearing between now and the July called meeting when the board will vote on the budget. 

The proposed balanced budget is set at $496 million, which includes $321.9 million operating budget; $89.5 million in its building fund; $51 million in debt service; $12 million in federal and state grants; $19.3 in school food service fund; and $2.1 million in what's labeled other funds.

The proposed budget is based on the district keeping its 19.85 millage rate in place. If approved, the district will start the new fiscal year with about 4,439 employees. 

Petruzielo said that while the district did see a "slight" bump in the assessed property tax digest, the district still faces a challenging time such the district having to pay more for its non-certified/classified employees to participate in the State Health Benefit Plan and facing over $20 million in state austerity budget cuts. 

"From a revenue standpoint, the proposed budget reflects another year of extremely difficult economic challenges for the school system," he added, noting the district still has to continue to grapple with state austerity measures.

Petruzielo noted that the one day that has to be cancelled due to monetary shortfalls occur in the second semester. The exact date will be determined after the proposed 2013-14 budget is approved. 

The board also approved a spending resolution that will allow the district to continue operating at current expense levels for an additional month.

Since the district's fiscal year runs July 1 to June 30, the resolution is needed as the Cherokee County government doesn't finalize tax digest appeals before the district's fiscal year begins. 

Don’t miss any of the local news you care about. Subscribe to Canton-Sixes Patch’s free newsletterlike us on Facebook and follow us on Twitter.


Get more local news delivered straight to your inbox. Sign up for free Patch newsletters and alerts.

We’ve removed the ability to reply as we work to make improvements. Learn more here