City school board receives favorable audit, reviews bus garage project
Tim Beck, director of , reviewed the district’s SMART Goals at Tuesday’s board meeting.
By JIM BROOKS
Nelson County Gazette / WBRT Radio
Tuesday, Nov. 15, 2016, 10 p.m. — The Bardstown Board of Education received a favorable review of its 2016 audit in a report from CPA Jason Strange with Smith & Co. CPAs.
Jason Strange reviewed the 2016 audit with the Bardstown board of education.
The biggest difference this year’s audit was the way the district’s share of its unfunded pension liability in the County Employee Retirement System (CERS) was reported in the audit.
The district’s share of the CERS pension liability for 2016 was $7.5 million, which pushed the district in the red for its balance sheet that included assets and long-term liabilities.
Strange explained that all school district must include the pension liability in their financial statements. The figure can vary from one year to the next, and it isn’t something the district is obliged to pay — only record as part of its financial statements. The dollar figure that represents a district’s pension liability changes each year, depending on a variety of factors that include the pension funds’ investments.
BUS GARAGE TIMELINE. Construction bids for the bus garage project at the former Salt River Electric project will likely be opened in February, Todd Hood, director of instructional related services told the board Tuesday.
Construction will begin in February, with completion in May, he said.
Hood said the project includes construction a wall to separate the bus garage from the rest of the building. A climate controlled area will be built in one of the bays for the district’s paper storage.
Bardstown High School Chris Pickett reviews the school’s delivery targets at Tuesday’s school board meeting.
The floor will be raised in order to give the building a single level and plans include LED lighting inside and out if money is available.
SMART GOALS. Tim Beck, the district’s director of curriculum, instruction and assessment, reviewed for the board the first three SMART Goals that are based on practices to ensure excellence in education by giving the district tools to evaluate the quality of its education.
If implemented and utilized regularly, the nine SMART Goals represent best practices that are proven to drive improvement in educational instruction.
Reviewing and collecting data on instruction is important, Beck said. “What you monitor is what gets done,” he said.
HIGH SCHOOL DELIVERY TARGETS. Bardstown High School Principal Chris Pickett reviewed the Bardstown High School Delivery Targets with the board.
The high school scored so well in K-PREP due largely to the school’s success with its gap students — students who aren’t achieving academically as well as the larger population of students.
Gap students is made of minority, poor and disabled students, and “we have worked the last couple of years in we have really worked on a process to get to students in the most need,” he said.
The overall weighted scores between 2012 and 2016 jumped from 56 to 76.1, which earned the school a Distinguished rating.
All gap students the school identified and worked with in a focus on writing last year saw improvement, with 70 percent of gap students raising their scores from novice level to apprentice or higher.
Right now, the school is working to get the rest of its scores above state averages and continuing to meet the school’s delivery targets and the needs of all their students.
In other business, the board
— approved the district’s post-audit annual financial report.
— honored Coach Felicia Sanchez and the Bardstown High School girls’ volleyball team for its 2016 record of 25 season wins, as well as district runner-up and regional runner-up titles.
— approved the offer of $20,328 in KETS technology funding to the district. The district can escrow the money for up to three years. It requires matching funds from the district and can only be spent on technology projects.
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