CLARKSBURG, W.Va. — It’s a time of change in Harrison County Schools.
Outgoing Superintendent of Schools Dr. Dora Stutler took part in her final meeting on Tuesday evening in Clarksburg. She announced her retirement last month, saying she wanted to spend more time with her family as her husband experiences health issues. Her replacement, former Hardy County Superintendent Dr. Sheena Van Meter, was tabbed by the state school chief Michele Blatt.
Van Meter was on hand for the Harrison County Board of Education meeting. Stutler gave her a warm welcome.
“She’s going to be a great addition to Harrison County,” Stutler said. “She’s already been working, getting information about the county, and I’m sure everybody up here is willing and excited to have you here, and we’ll do everything that you need us to do to help you transition. We hope all is well there. Welcome to Harrison County.”
Harrison County Schools have been under partial state intervention since July after state education officials learned of a multi-million-dollar deficit in the school system’s budget. State officials had received a report the system had spent $16 million of its reserves over a two-year period to fund hundreds of employees over the state funding formula.
Harrison County Schools Treasurer Whitni Kines updated the board with the latest numbers from the general fund.
“No surprise, we’ve been talking about this for months, we finished the deficit — in the red for the general fund — of about $5.4 million,” Kines said. “That’s directly related to the additional personnel we covered throughout the year and reduction in other revenues; reduction in state aid, and those kinds of things.”
Kines noted that the school system has an ‘unrestricted fund balance’ of $15.8 million, which is 13 percent of its annual expenditures. For reference, Kines said, that is a little over a month’s average cost to operate the district.
According to Kines, the Government Finance Officers Association and the West Virginia Department of Education recommend that the ‘unrestricted fund balance’ should hover around 16.67 percent of annual expenditures. Kines said they won’t meet that benchmark for Fiscal Year 2026 and therefore won’t receive additional bonus points related to finance efficiency indicators.
“This starts to worry me, when we talked about this before, because there are 19 indicators when it comes to finance efficiencies on our balance scorecard,” Kines said. “I’m not sure we’re going to meet them for FY26, we will be very close. FY27, not sure it will be met at all.”
Kines said that she’s responsible for nine of those 19 indicators for the finance efficiency benchmarks. She noted that she’ll handle her duties but indicated that prior shortcomings have come from multiple sources.
“We will receive all the points that I am responsible for,” Kines said. “The remaining are actually attributable to decisions made by the board in relation to policy development, policy implementation, and then the financial decisions.”
Flooding update
Harrison is one of three counties included in a federal disaster declaration request submitted to FEMA following mid-August flooding in West Virginia. Gov. Patrick Morrisey submitted the request Sunday.
Bridgeport High School experienced flooding impacts after high water on August 17. Harrison County Schools Supervisor of Transportation and Facilities Jamie Kosik reported to the board that damage assessments are complete in the high school’s weight room.
“Zides Sporting Goods, for the rubberized flooring that they had, with the purchase of the product and installation, it’s up about $86,000,” Kosik said. “We could probably save $22,000-to-$24,000 of that by installing that without in-house crews, which I think we can do.”
As for Bridgeport High School itself, Kosik said, the cost is around $62,000. He said that’s down by $50,000 following deductible calculations.
Kosik reported that the insurance carrier is pushing back on flooring repairs. He said that the company requested photos of the flooring from before the flooding occurred. Thankfully, Kosik said, someone had a photo that they passed along to him. He wondered why the carrier is pushing back like they are.
Additionally, a more time-consuming project remains at the high school, Kosik said.
“The last thing that we’re probably going to have to look at, and this is why this project is going to take a while, is the existing floor that was underneath our laminate floor,” Kosik said. “We’re going to need to have that tested to make sure we know what it is. Our insurance claims representatives said that would be included once they find out exactly what’s in that floor.”
Kosik said they’re going to need to allocate a significant chunk of time for that project. He said that if not over Christmas break this winter, it would have to wait until after the school year concludes next spring.