Longtime bus driver celebrated

Sep. 14—There's been a lot of change over the last 50 years. But for Whitfield County Schools, one thing has definitely been consistent — the presence of Phyllis Wimpy.

The system transportation employee of the year was recognized with a special presentment at the Monday Board of Education meeting, commemorating her half century of service to WCS.

"You do a wonderful job and we're so grateful," said WCS Superintendent Mike Ewton. "You are always a positive influence."

Kristina Horsley, Michelle Caldwell and Robb Kittle were also recognized for recent National School Public Relations Association Awards of Excellence honors.

Horsley and Caldwell were commended for their work on the WCS strategic plan year 1 progress report; Horsley and Kittle were commended for their work on WCS' updated recruitment marketing materials.

"Everybody's familiar with the labor market and all of the issues that go on as far as trying to get people to work and to keep the right people in place, and all those sorts of things, this is the next step of that," Ewton said of the latter accolade. "This is trying to tell the story of Whitfield County Schools, both for recruiting and for retention."

Elsewhere at the meeting, board members voted unanimously to approve a slate of purchase orders. Among the higher dollar items were a $330,789.96 agreement with vendor Verinext-San for server storage; a $145,535.34 agreement with vendor Trammell Lawn Care LLC for high school athletic fields services; and the purchase of two transit cargo maintenance fleet vehicles from Courtesy Ford Inc. for $129,916.15.

From there, WCS Chief Financial Officer Kelly Coon provided board members with a detailed update on the system's general fund.

She began by comparing the system's actual income to its budgeted collections.

"Within the next two-and-a-half weeks we will officially close FY (fiscal year) '23 and move full time living in FY '24," she said. "So the July 31 general fund revenue is coming in at 6.43% — you'll notice up here the property taxes are at 0.66%, that is usual for this time of year."

At the end of July, the system's total revenues for the current fiscal year stood at $9,157,010.

That stream included about $639,622 in local revenues and more than $8.5 million in Quality Basic Education (QBE) funding via the State of Georgia.

The system's FY '24 budget anticipates about $142.5 million in total revenues throughout the course of the year, with local revenues making up about $40.3 million of the projected income.

"On the expenditure side, there is no beginning fund balance yet," Coon continued. "But so far, on July 31, the general fund expenditures came in at 7.54%."

At that time, she said the system's ESPLOST VI revenues stood at $1,290,439.57, with annual capital funds interest earnings adding another $80,783.72. ESPLOST is Education Special Purpose Local Option Sales Tax.

Coon also touched upon several WCS capital fund projects, including various HVAC, roof and restrooms upgrades at Southeast Whitfield High.

That roughly $9.8 million project was financed with ESPLOST V proceeds. Other ESPLOST V-funded projects for the system include about $806,000 for similar repairs and renovations at Northwest Whitfield High; roughly $386,000 for paving projects at Dug Gap Elementary and Westside Elementary; and about $209,000 for Cedar Ridge Elementary lighting improvements.

Data presented by Coon indicates about $4.6 million in general fund revenues were set aside for administrative office building purposes.

"The special revenue fund is our state grants, local grants, our local school activities," she said. "Again, those are extremely low — we're still getting approved budgets for our grants, so we'll get those approved budgets, hopefully, by the end of this month or going into next month. And then we'll be able to do our first drawdown for those grants."

At the meeting, the system's FY '24 board training plan was also approved.

"We have to do nine hours each year after we've been on the board for a year, and then for exemplary staff we have to do 12," said Whitfield County Board of Education Chairman Bill Worley. "Most of us are at 15 hours of training per year."