The Inter-Mountain photo by Brad Johnson Randolph County Board of Education President Amanda Smith and Superintendent Gabriel “Gabe” Devono speak to the Elkins Rotary Club.

The Inter-Mountain photo by Brad Johnson
Randolph County Board of Education President Amanda Smith and Superintendent Gabriel “Gabe” Devono speak to the Elkins Rotary Club.

ELKINS — Elkins Rotarians learned about the proposed Randolph County Schools levy during their meeting Monday.

Superintendent Gabriel “Gabe” Devono provided an overview of the levy proposal’s details, aided by Randolph County Board of Education President Amanda Smith, Assistant Superintendent Debbie Schmidlen, Director of Finance Brad Smith and Director of Technology Hilary Ramsey.

Devono broke down what amount of the levy’s funding will go to each school, if the measure passes. A special election will be held for the excess levy option on March 9.

“We took a certain amount of the money of the levy that we gave to each school, and we gave each school so much per student,” Devono said. “For instance, you’ll have a school that will have $25,000. That is the school’s money. They spend it the way they feel comfortable doing it. They have the faculty senate meeting with the principal, they decide how they want to spend it, then they take it to their LSIC, which consists of people in the community plus people on the staff. Then they just give us a requisition and we purchase that equipment. It’s their money, their decisions on how to spend it for their children.”

Later in the meeting he provided more specific numbers regarding the funding breakdown.

“Right now, the way it will be broken down is… each school is going to get $20,000, then they get $35 per student,” Devono said.

One topic brought up by Rotarians at the meeting was updating school security.

“If one school wants to focus on school safety this year, they can,” Amanda Smith said. “But maybe another school wants to focus on technology. They have the latitude to use their school funds in the way that they see fit in those areas.”

“There will be some money left over for the county to look toward safety,” Devono added. “We want to upgrade our cameras in the school systems, too,” and officials are looking at security systems, he said.

The total amount for the proposed five-year levy would be $16,150,685 — or $3,230,137 annually — beginning July 1, 2019 through July 1, 2023.

A calculator on the BOE web page, at http://boe.rand.k12.wv.us/, allows residents to determine what taxes they would pay under the levy.

According to language in the proposed levy, $1 million would be used to make upgrades to facilities including the installation of turf at Tygarts Valley Middle-High School football and baseball fields, turf and bleachers at Wimer Stadium, turf at the Elkins Middle School softball field and turf at the Elkins High School baseball and soccer fields.

In addition, $900,000 would be set aside for school safety and student instructional materials — including the purchase of new textbooks and the purchase of and upgrades to technology hardware and software, as well as instructional materials to support band, music, and theater programs, according to the levy.

Furthermore, funding in the amount of $500,000 will be allotted to supporting the hiring of new professional staff and providing salary and state benefits to those staff to increase the teacher to student ratios, according to the levy.

Funds in the amount of $520,137 will be used for maintenance and upgrades to facilities including the completion of a new gymnasium at TVMHS.

Funds in the amount of $100,000 will be used to provide students, Randolph County Schools employees and senior citizens, ages 60 and over, to attend athletic activities in the county, according to the levy.

Funds in the amount of $180,000 annually will be used to provide support to extra-curricular activities for students, including transportation to these activities.

Finally, $30,000 will be used to provide funding to supplement the budget of the public libraries within Randolph County and the West Virginia University Extension Service to provide continuing 4-H programming.

Informational meetings scheduled to provide communities details about the proposed levy will begin Wednesday. A list of times and locations for the informational meetings are as follows:

Wednesday – 6 p.m. at Pickens Volunteer Fire Department

Thursday – 6 p.m. at Coalton Volunteer Fire Department

Feb. 4 – 7 p.m. at Tygart Valley Volunteer Fire Department

Feb. 6 – 6 p.m. at Valley Head Volunteer Fire Department

Feb. 7 – 7 p.m. at Harman Volunteer Fire

Department

Feb. 12 – 6:30 p.m. at Mill Creek-Huttonsville Volunteer Fire Department

Feb. 13 – 6:30 p.m. at Elkins Fire Department

Feb. 20 – 6:30 p.m. at Leading Creek Volunteer Fire Department

Feb. 21 – 6:30 p.m. at Beverly Volunteer Fire Department