The RE-1 Valley School Board will soon have a vacancy in District 4.

With the election over, three new members were welcomed onto the RE-1 Valley School Board at a special meeting Monday, but there will be more change coming as the board will soon have an open seat to fill.

Following a public comment question regarding a board member who has moved out of their district and why they are still on the board and voting on action items, Superintendent Shila Adolf shared that she anticipates that Jennifer Ogley, who represents District 4, will resign from her position very soon. She also mentioned two potential candidates have contacted the district about being involved as school board members.

When Ogley does resign, a vacancy will need to be declared and the board will appoint someone to fill the seat.

Later in the meeting, Heather Harris, Michelle Sharp and Steve Shinn were sworn into office, along with Ronda Monheiser, who ran for re-election unopposed. Shinn was elected to serve as president of the board, Monheiser and Jill Brownell were nominated to serve as vice president and following a paper ballot vote Monheiser was given the position. Harris will serve as secretary/treasurer and Jodene Boerner will serve as Centennial BOCES representative with Brownell as a backup.

New boards members will get some training later this week at the Colorado Association of School Boards Convention, in Colorado Springs. Adolf shared that six RE-1 students, two from Caliche High School and four from Sterling High School, have been invited to do attend the convention, they will be participating with 200 students from all over Colorado. As part of their time there, they will be meeting with legislators.

One of the new board's first action items was to approve the October financial statement. Asked if the district is caught up on bills, Glenn Gustafson, who is helping the district with its finances on an ex-officio basis, said they are absolutely not.

"We're really making progress," he told the board, but noted with the recent payroll day, as is always the case, that took time away from working on accounts payable. "We're still behind one to three months on many invoices, but we're better off than we were at the last board meeting."

The district has hired someone to handle accounts payable and they will start in a week and a half. Having that fourth person in the finance office is critical, Gustafson noted there are no districts that are RE-1's size or smaller who use the finance software that RE-1 has switched to, Infinite Visions, that have only three people, they all have four to six people.

"Even once we hire that new person, it's going to take us a month, two months to get them trained and get them caught up," he said.

Harris asked if staff coding things before they go to the accountants could help. Gustafson said that's one of the things the district wants to get to and was one of the reasons the board was asked and did approve at Monday's meeting creating a P-Card in the district.

P-Cards are the industry standard in K-12 school systems across the country and will replace the district credit card system that is currently used.

"We need to have our staff be able to start making purchases. I pulled the Walmart cards from them, because they were an out of control spending mechanism, they were not tracked with receipts, they were not tracked by building and I decided the best way to stop that process was to just take them away and put in a more standardized operating procedure," Adolf said.

P-Cards are directly assigned to a person, unlike the Walmart cards, which were not designated to individuals and could be given to anyone to use, making it easy to lose receipts and not turn everything in.

"I feel like it's our job as stewards of the taxpayer dollars to account for every recipient," Adolf said.

Gustafson noted every card carries sales tax exempt status, has a smart code on it, so it can't be used at the liquor store, for example, and the cards will actually earn the district an annual rebate. Also, every card is assigned a general ledger account number which allows the district to upload all transactions electronically into the general ledger each month. Plus, this will allow the schools to do a little bit more of their own ordering.

There will be training on how to use the cards, what's acceptable and what's not and there will be a monthly spending limit. The superintendent will be responsible for designating who will get the cards, generally, school districts give the cards to principals, assistant principals, head secretary, custodian and maybe one other person at the secondary level, as well as several in administration.

The timeline for implementation will depend on the bank; Gustafson hopes to get the cards up and running by the end of January.

In her superintendent's report, Adolf shared the district has completed its SEL audit for the grant it received from the Colorado Health Foundation. Generation Solutions met with Adolf and Dennis Klein, gifted director/technology department, and will be preparing a report for next steps on how the district can use the grant effectively and how it can develop a social-emotional learning program, what the curriculum would like and how it would work.

She also shared the district received an updated report from the state regarding the annual preschool inspection at Hagen Early Education Center that was recently completed and the state amended its findings and did adjust some things. Adolf clarified that most of the violations that occurred were in the Dragonfly Room, which is not currently used by students.

"It was right that they were audited and cited, because it is a certified room, we just don't currently have students in that room," Adolf said. "The classrooms that had students in continuous attendance did not have violations."

The superintendent is also working to assist some classified employees who are ready to retire and were not paid PERA back in the 80s. She's not sure if that was RE-1's doing or another school district.

In regards to retirees, Adolf mentioned she would like for the district to annually evaluate allowing retirees to stay on in a critical shortage. Right now, the district has a massive shortage for all positions, period.

Additionally, she shared that the potholes have been filled in at Campbell Elementary and Gustafson has been working with Mike Manuello, director of maintenance and transportation, "to put a little more intention into getting a capital plan, so we can start looking at building facilities and needs."