It is Monday, Aug. 11 — two weeks before school starts — and Beeville school teacher Jennifer Hughes is in her classroom cleaning out her desk.
She holds up a ring she found in a drawer, studies the cheap gumball machine prize and then throws it in the trash can.
“I took this away from a student last year,” recalls Hughes, who teaches third grade at Fadden-McKowen-Chambliss Elementary School. “I guess I forgot to give it back.”
Seconds later fourth-grade teacher Julie Maupin walks in the room with her daughter.
They’re looking for a radio. The teen-ager “simply cannot work” without music.
Hughes and Maupin are among several dozen BISD teachers who returned to campuses last week in order to wipe dust off chairs, desks and walls, hang posters and charts taken down last spring so that the rooms can be cleaned or painted, and arrange seating.
“The school district pays teachers for one day to get our rooms ready for the start of school, but that’s not enough time to get everything done,” Hughes explains. “It’ll take me all week to get my room just like I like it.”
Students return to class on Monday, Aug. 25.
Beeville ISD trustees are considering a proposal to give employees a 3 percent pay raise this coming school year to help them cope with the rising cost of gas, food and electricity.
The proposed salary increase will have to be funded through a 6-cent tax hike, BISD Superintendent Dr. John Hardwick Jr. told trustees during a recent budget workshop.
The proposed increase will cost some $660,000 and will have to be financed through a tax rate increase of 6 cents.
If trustees adopt the budget they reviewed last week, residents who live within BISD will vote on the proposed tax rate increase in November.
In the past, school trustees could raise the tax rate by up to 8 cents per $100 value to finance pay raises and other expenses without voter approval and without triggering a “rollback election” that would allow voters to repeal the tax rate increase.
However, the Legislature changed the law last year to require school districts to seek public approval for any tax rate increases.
If approved by voters, taxpayers will pay a total of $1.17 to BISD for every $100 worth of property they own — $1.10 per $100 value for the maintenance and operation of campuses and another 7 cents per $100 value to pay off long-term debt.
The district presently levies a tax rate of $1.04 per $100 value for M&O and 7 cents per $100 value for debt service for a total tax rate of $1.11.
That means the owner of a $100,000 home could expect to pay $1,170 to BISD in property taxes to the school district over the next 12 months before exemptions, compared to $1,110 during the present budget year, a difference of $60.
The board will hold a public hearing on the proposed budget and tax rate increase on Tuesday, Aug. 26. The public hearing will begin at 5:30 p.m. and the board meeting will begin at 6 p.m., at which time trustees are scheduled to consider adopting the tax rate and budget for the 2008-09 school year.
Hardwick warned the board that they may be forced to consider cutting educational programs and employees next school if the economy doesn’t get better.
He said school districts in rural counties such as Bee County may one day be forced to consolidate in order to cut costs.
“I don’t see why a small county like ours needs four superintendents and three athletic directors,” he said, noting that consolidating those high-profile jobs and others could save Pettus, Beeville, Skidmore-Tynan and Pawnee ISD hundreds of thousands of dollars annually.
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