By JONAH LOSSIAH
One Feather Reporter
CHEROKEE, N.C. – School Board discusses finances and investments
The first guest was Ashford Smith, finance director for the Cherokee Boys Club. He was there to provide a budget update for the school.
“These financials in front of you have been updated to reflect the salary adjustment we had at the beginning of this fiscal year. As of right now, the school overall is 20 percent under budget,” said Smith.
“When looking at why that is, it’s important to note that since that salary adjustment, 78 percent of the school’s budget is in salary fringe. So, anytime the schools under budget, that’s the first place I like to look. What I’m seeing, as you dive through the numbers, is that there’s salary savings in basically every department of the school. If you look at the job advertisements, that kind of confirms that theory. That’s the big picture. Every department is under budget just because of salaries.”
Smith said that the numbers were not a surprise, and that the budget was in good shape.
“When it comes to the other expenses, they’re also several departments that are under in that capacity, as well. But that usually ramps up near the end of the fiscal year as spending starts to increase. One, supplies start depleting, so more supplies are needed. But then also, prep for the next fiscal year also starts,” said Smith.
The discussion around staffing prompted Painttown Tribal Council Rep. Dike Sneed to ask about the open positions at the school. He was answered by Heather Driver, CCS director of Human Resources. She said that some of the openings have been filled multiple times and that staffing issues are very common in education right now.
“It’s just depending on the position…a lot of the time it happens to be within our Special Education Department. Those are hard across the board. We just heard from Jackson County; they’ve had six they haven’t filled all year either. It’s not just us,” said Driver.
Next to report at the meeting was the EBCI Investment Committee. The Committee was represented by Chairperson Jimmy Burns and former chairperson Polly Kelly. Burns said that numbers were down in February, but that was expected given the nature of the market recently.
“We lost money, but we didn’t lose as much as everyone else in a similar type of investment. For the quarter, we’re still up .81 percent. If you go all the way over to ‘since inception’, we’ve actually made 3.41 percent on the return,” said Burns.
“We’re expecting somewhat of a flat year. So, the next quarterly update should be something similar to what we’re seeing. Just single-digit changes. Hopefully, once the Fed starts lowering those interest rates, we’ll start seeing the market take off and recovering. Really see some gains in the endowment.”
Following the market update, School Board Chairperson Jennifer Thompson opened the conversation around contributions to the CCS Reserve Fund. She wanted the Board to move forward in deciding the best way to add to this account annually, something they have discussed previously. Thompson said that it would be important that everyone understand the plan, especially Tribal Council.
“We’re adding this to this fund, and Council might be like ‘why are we giving you this money? you’re just putting it into this endowment fund.’ But that’s the whole point. The end-term goal was to be self-sufficient with our own endowment. In case something happened to our gaming revenue or our other revenues that the Tribe has. Or if something happens with the Federal government and we don’t get as much from the BIE (Bureau of Indian Education),” said Thompson.
The Board discussed the concept for a few minutes. Rep. Sneed said that the Tribal Council could be of additional assistance, as they have recently hired a certified public accountant (CPA). Burns expanded upon that offer.
“What I think would be a great idea, if it was okay with Dike, is to get together with the CPA and set up a contribution goal. So that you can talk with them and say ‘this is what we want to accomplish with this fund’. We want it, one day, to able to fund operations. How much would we need to reach to get to that? How much would we and Council feel comfortable with contributing annual so that we can meet that goal. If we have that plan together, everyone’s on the same page and we can refer back to it year-over-year in case there are ever questions,” said Burns.
Before closing discussion on this topic, Kelly requested that specific numbers from this public and open session not disseminated.
“We ask that our numbers for the Fund is not to be put in the paper. Because to me, I see the paper. It’s kind of a like, we want to, just like our other fund, we don’t want the world to know what kind of monies you have. However, if someone calls and wants the information, it’s free to our people and our parents. But it’s not for the whole world to look at,” said Kelly.
The final guests in the open session were members from the CCS Student Council to offer a report on a trip they made to Washington, D.C. The students presented a slideshow and talked about some of their favorite parts of the trip, primarily discussing the monuments and memorials.
The School Board then moved into session to have a conversation with a student at Cherokee High School. The Board then stayed in closed session for attorney-client privilege discussion with their attorney John Henning from Campbell Shatley, PLLC.
After the closed session, the Board unanimously passed the consent agenda. That decision put forth the following:
- Madison Dills approved as an elementary teacher.
- Tagan Crowe approved to fill the agriculture teacher position full time.
- Chazi Blankenship approved for an increase to level 5 pay scale.
- Rileigh Hazen approved as a substitute teacher for Cherokee Middle School.
The Monday, March 20 meeting of the CCS Board of Education was called to order at 4:45 p.m. with Chairperson Jennifer Thompson; Co-Vice Chairs Tara Reed-Cooper and Melanie Lambert; Secretary Kristina Hyatt; Board members Berdie Toineeta and Regina Ledford Rosario; Tribal Council Rep. Dike Sneed; Interim Superintendent Dr. Beverley Payne; HR Director Heather Driver; CCS Attorney John Henning of Campbell Shatley, PLLC; and Administrative Assistant Diane Driver all in attendance.
The next meeting of the CCS Board of Education is set for Monday, April 3 at 4:45 p.m. Meetings are being held in the Administrative Offices at Cherokee Central Schools. These meetings are open to the public unless there is a call for an executive session.
