DECATUR — On Tuesday, the Arkansas State Board of Education voted to officially remove the Decatur School District from fiscal distress and begin the process of handing control back to a local school board.
Superintendent LeRoy Ortman and federal programs coordinator Bobby King traveled to Little Rock to appear at the State Board of Education meeting.
Decatur schools met all the requirements to removedfrom fiscal distress immediately and will be removed from state control by Oct. 1, King said.
Before the meeting, the Arkansas Department of Education submitted a letter supporting the decision. According to the letter from ADE Coordinator Hazel Burnett, Decatur Schools have completed all activities and strategies outlined in the district’s fiscal distress improvement plan and have complied with all department recommendations and requirements for the removal from fiscal distress and state control.
The next step will be to reconstitute local control of theschool. Ortman, who plans to return to retirement, has already submitted a letter of resignation, effective June 30, to give state officials as much time as possible to find his replacement.
King said Dr. Tom Kimbrell, state commissioner of education, is planning to put together a committee consisting of his staff and Decatur community members to find a replacement for Ortman before the school year is over.
nancial turnaround. When the state took control of the district in July 2008, the ADE predicted the school would end the 2009 school year more than $500,000 in the red.
Instead the district ended 2009 with $801,757 in its general fund. Ortman said that getting the school’s books in order so the figures could be trusted made the biggest difference in the turnaround, crediting district treasurer Terry Burden for her hard work.
Prior to July of 2008, all of the school’s financial records are questionable, Burden said. More than $2.4 million worth of checks were written but not recorded over a period of two years, and bank statements had not been reconciled since September of 2005.
Ortman said that better use of federal and categorical funds and the reduction of seven and one-half staffpositions due to attrition also saved the school a considerable amount of money.
Community donations of more than $260,000 were a key to surviving the first year after the financial crises, Ortman said.
“They were a one-year bailout if you will,” he said laughingly.
But the school has been able to continue improving its position in the 2009-2010 year even without the donations. The district’s December financial statement showed $1.2 million in the school’s general fund.
Former superintendent Dave Smith’s lawsuit for the remainder of his three-yearcontract is set to go to trial on Feb. 25 and 26, according to Ortman. Smith was terminated by the Arkansas State Board of Education when it voted to take control of the district in July 2008. Even though an adverse decision could cost the school more than $300,000, the school would still have a 7 to 10 percent carryover for the 2011 school year, Ortman said.
The Greenland School District, which faced a situation similar to Decatur’s, was also removed from the state’s fiscal distress list and will be reconstituted under control of a local school board by Oct. 1 as well.
Regular school board elections will be held in September, as required by state law, and after some state training the new school board will resume control on Oct. 1.
“It’s a big weight off our shoulders. It was a lot of hard work for everyone involved,” King said of the decision, pointing out that community members, school staff and students, and the Decatur Education Foundation worked as a team with Ortman to reach the achievement.
“To know we’ve been released from fiscal distress, man, it’s a pretty good feeling. We’re just going to keep moving up from here,” he said.
The Decatur School District has made a dramatic fi-
News, Pages 1 on 01/20/2010