BISD School Board Meets, New Boardmember

by Eric

The Brownfield ISD School Board held a regularly scheduled meeting last night where they discussed and took action on several items of business.

The first section of the meeting took place in the BHS commons area to honor all state qualifiers for all extracurricular activities.

Also during this time, President of the Board and Chief of Police for Brownfield Tony Serbantez was honored for his time on the school board. Serbantez did not run for reelection so he would be coming off the board. Serbantez told the crowd, “Please continue to get behind the board and the administration.”

After a quick recess, the meeting was moved over to the board room at the administration office.

The first item of business after the recess, the board canvassed the votes for the board election. There were three open positions for the school board with two incumbents and one newcomer and all three positions were uncontested. Yvonne Rocha who represents position 1 and Randy Anthony who represents position 2 stayed in their positions. Cody Churchwell took over position 3 which was held by Tony Serbantez.

After the canvass of the votes, the three elected board members were sworn in by County Clerk Kim Carter. After the swearing-in ceremony, the presiding vice-president of the Board Geoff Cooper opened up nominations for President of the School Board. Board member Tim Swaringen nominated Geoff Cooper as president and it was seconded by board member Randy Anthony. There were no other nominations given for president, and the board unanimously approved Geoff Cooper as Board President.

Continuing on in the officer elections, the nomination was opened for Board Vice-President and Board Member Cat Gonzales nominated Tim Swaringen with Board Member Will Hawkins seconding that nomination. No other member was nominated and the board approved unanimously for Tim Swaringen to be Board Vice-President.

The next officer to be elected was the secretary of the board. Swaringen nominated Board Member Cat Gonzales for the Secretary position and Anthony seconded the nomination. There was no other nomination for the position of secretary and Gonzales was unanimously approved.

Next was the Superintendents report and Mr. Smith spoke about a new deal that was reached with Angelo State University to do their dual credit through them and the cost will be less than what the school district is paying South Plains College. Mr. Smith said, “Once our students take dual credit classes from Angelo State, they will then be accepted to attend all four years at Angelo State.”

Next item was the financial statements. According to BISD’s CFO Teresa Montemayor, the school district has only used 65% of the budget. Typically by this time of the year 75% or more is usually used. “This puts the school district in a great situation,” Montemayor said. Montemayor also mentioned in the financials that the original budget that was adopted was “budget deficit” of negative ($569,633.00). As of the board meeting, the new final projected change in fund balance will be negative ($194,546). According to Montemayor, this might continue to change where the fund balance will get better.

The board took action on buying two new Chevy Suburbans approximately costing $85,000.00. The school district will be able to purchase the Surburbans locally from Stanley Auto Group at a better price than anticipated. The board unanimously approved the purchase of two new Surburbans.

The board went in to cloded door session and there was no action taken.

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