Staff stipends given to school employees

The Socorro School board tackled a packed agenda last week with a presentation of awards, the swearing in of a new board member and approvals on the budget, calendar and staff stipends.

Stipends

The board unanimously approved a stipend of at least $5,000 and up to $6,5000 for all regular full and part time employees who worked for the school district this last school year and have signed a letter of intent.

Rhiannon Crespin, executive director of finance and personnel, said the stipend would come from the COVID funds that are set to expire Sept. 30th. They are waiting to hear a confirmation of the exact amount the remaining balance but she said it is about 2.2 million dollars. Their goal is to spend as much as possible before June 30th so they don’t lose it.

She said with money in the set aside account, the $33,000 remaining will need to be spent, “it’s not something we want to let go so we are going to try as hard as we can to spend every dollar.”

Tara Jaramillo asked if de-escalation training such as CPI could be bought with the remaining money. She said there have been several emails about behavior at the schools and the board talked about incorporating CPI training four months ago.

Ron Hendrix, superintendent said he would look into it. Currently the schools have a restorative justice training scheduled and Hendrix said there are options for other trainings available.

Budget

Crespin presented a fiscal year budget to the school board for approval. “After rolling forward our fiscal year 2024 budget as is and then applying the mandatory increase to salaries and benefits, the district is facing a shortfall of about 1.5 million” Crespin said, “The shortfall was due to a few reasons we had a slight decline in enrollment. The bigger cuts were that there were no longer K12 plus and the state got rid of the out of school time funding.”

She said there is a chance they’ll be able to add to the budget if more funding comes through like she hopes, “right now we are looking at worst case scenario for our budget.. I just don’t count my chickens before they are hatched,”

She said almost daily changes are happening, “but no one is losing their job and no one is facing a pay decrease, which to me was my number one goal”

Hendrix said classes sizes could increase from 17 students per classroom to 24. He said he felt like it wasn’t horrible and in the past they have had up to 27 students per classroom.

Crespin also reported to the board the transportation department took a $240,000 cut in their budget along with other school districts over 1,000 student in New Mexico. She felt the cut was inequitable and it has left them looking for ways to cut and combine routes.

“We took the same cut that APS and Las Cruces Schools took,” Crespin said.

Hendrix and Crespin told the board that the school has to go over 180 days to get any additional funds, which would be at least 30 more days than the school calendar presented. Frustration was expressed with the lack of communication from the PED and concern it was due to the current 180-day litigation.

New food service provider

The school board approved a new vendor for school food service. Hendrix said that the committee used a rubric to determine which one scored the best. The committee recommended K-12 by Elior, and the board unanimously approved the recommendation.

“I’m glad to see a change, my phone has been ringing off the hook over that,” Hicks said.

Resignations and Retirement

In the school board packed a list of fourteen employees have submitted resignations including high school principal Christine Peguero. Five have notified the school of their retirements. Crespin said they were still processing resignations and the numbers weren’t final.

School Board Awards:

Dave Hicks- Kenny Gonzales

Tara Jaramillo- Brittany McDaniel

Sharon Sessions-Maureen Wilks

Mike Hargather- Roberta Cooke and Marc Gross

Pauline Jaramillo-Mela Straley

District Awards:

Teacher of the year- Betty Sedillo

Coach of the year- Charles Zimmerman

District Office Employee of the year- Bonnie Hoke

Ancillary Employee of the Year-Cortney Miller

Maintenance of the year-Hector Reyes

Ancillary Employee of the year- Cortney Miller

Staff member of the year- Paula DeWeese