Whitfield County Board of Education members unanimously approved several high-priced purchase orders Monday, including a $1.5 million purchase from Sweetwater Valley Oil Co. in Chattanooga for unleaded fuel and diesel fuel for buses and other transportation.
“As you know our fiscal year began July 1, so a number of these are open purchase orders that we use for purchases throughout the year,” Whitfield County Schools Superintendent Mike Ewton said. “For things like (the diesel and gasoline), we don’t spend all of that at once and we usually don’t spend all of it (together).”
Purchase orders exceeding $25,000 for July that were approved include:
— Lawn care services from Trammell Lawn Care LLC for elementary schools, middle schools, high school athletic fields and the NorthStar program, $268,200.
— A lease renewal with Chattanooga-based MSA Digital for copier machines, $133,469.88.
— School resource officer services through an agreement with the Whitfield County Board of Commissioners, $487,400.
— Water, sewer and cleaning services from Alpharetta-based American Facility Services Inc., $3.3 million.
— New curriculum and workshops focusing on phonics, writing and word studies from Benchmark Education Co., $1.3 million.
“Those are our high-quality instructional materials required by the state with our new literacy initiatives,” said Ewton.
Deputy Superintendent Karey Williams said the legislature passed a law last year, House Bill 538, that focused on early literacy, “where we have to have board-approved instructional materials.”
Highlights of the instructional materials include “being aligned to the science of reading” and instructing students “in foundational literacy skills and State Board of Education-approved English Language Arts standards,” as well as being approved for students in kindergarten through third grade.
Chief Financial Officer Kelly Coon provided financial updates.
“Although we have started a new fiscal year (fiscal year 2025), the report for tonight is still for FY ‘24 and the financials are as of May 31,” Coon said.
As of the end of May, total revenues for the system in fiscal year 2024 were $138,342,042, which included $42,993,306 in local revenues and $94,027,757 in state Quality Basic Education funding.
“Budget to actual for the general fund, we were at 93.49%,” Coon said. “The month of May is 92% of the fiscal year.”
Anticipated total revenues for the fiscal year 2024 budget is $147,974,422.
Coon said general fund expenditures as of May 31 were at 90.84%, with total expenditures of $133,158,008 and anticipated total expenditures for fiscal year 2024 of $146,581,833.
For the capital fund, Coon said Special Purpose Local Option Sales Tax (SPLOST) VI collections as of May 31 were $1.4 million.
“Which is a little higher than we’ve seen in the past couple of months,” she said. “Again, the collections are for the previous month so our May 31 deposit was for sales for the month of April.”
Coon presented several capital fund projects, including lighting and heating, ventilation and air conditioning (HVAC) renovations to elementary schools, including Antioch Elementary and Cedar Ridge Elementary, as well as new athletic facilities and combination baseball/softball turf fields for Coahulla Creek High School, Southeast Whitfield High School and Northwest Whitfield High School.
Each of those projects are financed with Education SPLOST V proceeds, with the combination baseball/softball turf fields project totaling $109,584, the Antioch Elementary HVAC renovations totaling $21,270.60 and the Cedar Ridge Elementary lighting renovations totaling $620,271.40.
“We’ve added several projects during the last couple of board meetings, so some projects are listed that don’t have any expenses with them as of right now,” Coon said. “Those are to come. As we’re nearing the end of FY ‘24, some of these projects will roll off and be added to our asset listing for the district.”
Coon said she will present June 30 financials during the Aug. 5 board meeting.
“I just want to remind you that it takes the district about two-and-a-half months to officially close the fiscal year, so in the months of July, August and September we’ll still be paying bills and posting a lot of journal entries,” she said. “By the end of September we’ll have a final count of where FY ‘24 ends, so we’ll be updating you along the way in the next couple of months.”