SA board won't change its pay system

BERNE — A proposal to pay South Adams School Board members per meeting they attend didn’t make it past Tuesday night’s meeting. 

Board members voted against having a second reading on changing the salary schedule to a combination of per meeting and stipend payments. 

The board also approved a contract for constructing the concessions building at the Harry F. Anderson baseball diamond. 

Board president Arlene Amstutz first introduced the idea of changing the payment policy at January’s meeting, pointing out that in 2018 there were several meetings where only four members were in attendance. 

The current policy reads “board members shall receive each year a basic compensation of $2,000 per annum.” Members are paid a $1,000 stipend every six months.

Amstutz proposed a plan of paying $100 per meeting and budget work session to total $1,300, with the remaining $700 to be split into two stipend payments. 

It would require changing the wording of the policy to “up to $2,000 per annum.”  

At February’s meeting, the board voted 5-1 to adjust the language of the policy to include the words. 

However, Julie Mansfield expressed reservations about the change at Tuesday’s meeting. She apologized for missing several meetings last year, but said she had valid reasons for skipping each, including family obligations. Mansfield voted for the policy change at February’s meeting. 

“I think that more than just saying that we get paid per diem to come to a meeting, that maybe as a board we need to sit down and determine what things we expect out of each board member,” Mansfield said. 

Mitch Sprunger, who spoke against the policy change in January but was absent for February’s vote, worried about the unintended consequences of being paid per meeting. Money has no impact on whether he is able to attend a meeting, he said. 

“It would relieve me knowing that South Adams isn’t paying,” Sprunger said. “I’m afraid it could have the opposite effect, and I do agree, I think it could have been discussed and handled in a different form.” 

The change was never meant to call out specific board members, Amstutz said. 

“Whether I was president or not, I felt the next person needed to have board members here,” she said. “When you’re representing the district, you really need to be here to cast that one vote that you really only have.” 

John Mann, John Buckingham and Amstutz voted in favor of having a second reading for the policy change, but the measure died as Amy Orr, Landon Patterson, Sprunger and Mansfield voted against it. 

Also on Tuesday, the board approved a $210,930 contract with Marquis Builders to construct the concessions, restroom and press box building at the school’s baseball field. 

The original bid was $261,600, but the company worked with the school to reduce costs, including shifting construction from early 2019 to the summer. 

The total estimated price of the project including the architect fee and sewer hook-up costs is $250,927 — $53,927 more than the school corporation had budgeted for the project. 

Superintendent Scott Litwiller told the board it had two options for the remaining cost: the rainy day fund for this year or the sports facilities fund. He recommended using the rainy day fund, as the sports facilities fund was earmarked to seal cracks in the tennis courts. 

The board will consider its options and vote at a later meeting on the funding source. 

In other business, the board: 

•Learned that South Adams has been designated a Performance Qualified School District for 2019-2020 for being rated as a B school in the 2017-2018 school year. 

This is the second consecutive year it received the designation; for the current school year, it received the designation for being an A school in 2016-2017. 

The designation allows the school to measure its instructional time in minutes rather than days.  

•Accepted a donation of $300 in Walmart gift cards from an anonymous donor to be used to buy food and other items for students in need. 

•Accepted the resignations of Jeannie Stults as a special education aide and Seth Sprunger as the girls’ golf coach. 

•Hired Tandra Billington to replace Stults as a full-time special education aide; Julie Baumer, Allison Crider, Andy Sommer, Sandy Sprunger and Sarah Wright as elementary school tutors and Jeff Bradtmiller, Jeannine Wurster, Erin Hubbard, Cindy Sprunger, Gwen Habegger and Brad Buckingham as middle school tutors for ILEARN Bootcamp; Lilly Taing and Jim Buckingham as paid lay coaches for softball and baseball, respectively; and Lars In’t Groen as a volunteer track coach. 

•Accepted the retirement of Michael Baer, who has taught at South Adams since 1997. 

•Approved several field trips: for the FFA Livestock Judging Team to Joliet Junior College in Illinois April 5-6; to the FFA State Convention at Purdue University from June 17-20; and a middle school trip to Washington, D.C., in June 2020. 

•Heard that ISTEP testing for high schoolers was recently completed. Third graders will be taking IREAD next week. 

•Noted that board visitation day will begin at 8 a.m. April 9, and the regular board meeting will begin at 4 p.m. Board members will visit classrooms, talk to students, teachers and staff, and have a work session to discuss plans for the future of the school.