NEW CUMBERLAND, W.Va. — Nearly one month after the West Virginia Board of Education seized control of Hancock County Schools, new leaders are in place, and efforts to pull the school system out of financial ruin are underway.
The state board elected to fire the county’s superintendent and assistant superintendent while installing Walter Saunders, the director of Federal Programs and Assessment for Ohio County Schools, as the new superintendent. He said that meetings with state officials have been productive so far.
“It was just very informative for the community to just see what the process was and how we got to the point we are with our finances, so I think they laid it out pretty black and white for everybody to see,” he said last week on MetroNews Midday.
Financial strain in Hancock County Schools includes borrowing money from its technical education center to make payroll last year and a request to the state Department of Education for $700,00 shortly before a state of emergency was declared.
A bill establishing an emergency fund for distressed county school systems quickly passed the House of Delegates last month in response to the crisis in Hancock County. That bill stalled in committee after moving over to the Senate, but Saunders said they are still getting help from Charleston.
“The payroll is also something that’s come up, and the state was able to forward us our June disbursement in order to make that payroll, and we’re doing those calculations to make sure we’re on track,” he said.
Figures released at the time of the state’s takeover indicated that Hancock County employed more than 140 workers over its allocation under the state’s funding formula. Saunders explained that correcting the overage isn’t as simple as cutting positions because the formula is based on the number of days an employee works.
“If you have a person on staff that’s working more than 200 days—220 is the easiest one to use—that person becomes a 1.1, so you have to pick up that other 20 days out of your general, so if we look at positions like that, we can reduce those numbers,” he said.
The next steps in Hancock County include zeroing in on what the school system is paying for that could be cut back. Saunders isn’t looking forward to making those decisions.
“We have to look at the overall programs of what we’re offering and kind of get down to niceties and necessities on what we can provide financially, and that doesn’t always match up with what we want to provide,” he said.
As the new leadership attempts to move forward, Saunders has a couple of requests from residents.
“I ask for two things. Check your sources when somebody’s telling you, ‘I heard this and I heard that,’ and also I’d ask for some patience,” he said.