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County schools send letters home blaming Boise for funding cutbacks A letter has been sent to parents of students of Grove Hill Elementary School and Gillmore Elementary School asking for volunteer help to ease the financial burden to the school system caused by the lack of ad valorem tax revenue from Boise Paper in Jackson. The letter to Grove Hill parents was sent by the school's Parent Teacher Organization and reads "as many of you know, our Clarke County School Board is struggling with a very difficult financial situation at the present time. "Boise White Paper in Jackson, the largest industry in Clarke County, has not paid its property taxes for the years 2006 and 2007. This has resulted in a budget shortage to our School Board of approximately one million dollars. "Mr. (Gerald Stephens, school superintendent), our School Board, and our school leaders have done a marvelous job of managing this budget crisis," the letter continues. "If you are called on to help your classroom teachers or your principals during this time, please do all that you can do to help until this crisis is resolved and the taxes are paid." The idea for the letter came from the system office but was supported by Kathy Spidle, the GHES principal. "It's killing us budgetwise," Stephens said Tuesday. "If we can't get something done, and with the cuts that are coming from the legislature, we are going to have to rely on some of the things that was asked in that letter." Expected cuts in state school funding will force the system to find local funding. The Thomasville School System recently announced they would be losing approximately $377,620 in state funding for fiscal year 2009. The county superintendent said cuts to his system will likely "be twice that much or maybe more….We can't continue to operate with funds that we get. "We are down to the bottom of the barrel now with local teacher units that we can hire now," Stephens said. With the expected shortfall in state funding, "we are going to have to let some non-tenured folks go, and I don't like to do that." The letters were only sent to parents of elementary students because "we have more parental involvement in the elementary schools," he said. "I just hope it will help the public see what position this has got us in. "For two years-in-a row - that's over a million dollars…that we are losing," Stephens said, "and we don't have much as far as local funding is concerned anyway." The system was hopeful it would see revenue from the Louisiana Pacific mill this year, he said, but with operation just now beginning, that tax revenue will not be realized until 2009. Is there any sense of when the tax issue with Boise will be resolved? "There's been some effort on both sides to try to solve this thing," Stephens said. He believes it could be solved before the start of the 2008-2009 school year. "If you are there with good intentions, I think it could be solved before next year."
A mediation hearing is set at the Clarke County Courthouse for Thursday morning, April 3. Retired Circuit Judge Claude Nielson of Marengo County will preside. Circuit Judge Tom Baxter ordered the less formal mediation in an effort to have the matter settled outside of the court system.
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