Trending
ELKINS -- State officials plan to meet with the Randolph County Board of Education today to deal with questions surrounding some of the BOE's votes last week on RIF (reduction in force) recommendations, a BOE member said.
The Inter-Mountain reached out to BOE member Dr. Phil Chua on Wednesday in regard to social media rumors that state officials would be coming to Elkins today due to allegedly "illegal" voting on the RIF recommendations April 22.
"Well, it's not that it's illegal -- just some of the decisions would go against seniority rules so that they may have to be rescinded," Chua told The Inter-Mountain Wednesday afternoon. "I don't understand it completely myself.
"And we are meeting with the state Department of Accountability, but we don't know the context of why. I'll know after the meeting May 1," Chua said.
On April 22, the BOE voted to terminate 29 professional staff positions, and four service personnel jobs. The BOE also voted to save 13 professional staff positions that were on the termination list.
Speaking to a broadcast outlet several days after the meeting, Superintendent Dr. Shawn Dilly said the cuts will still not be enough to balance the county's budget.
Dilly said in the broadcast interview that the BOE's failure to follow state personnel laws "will require us to undo a lot of those positions that were going to be successfully reduced," therefore making it impossible to balance the budget.
Since last fall, Dilly has stressed that if the Randolph schools system is not able to balance its budget, it may be taken over by the state.
The Inter-Mountain called and left messages with the BOE office multiple times Monday and Tuesday seeking comment from Dilly about this week's developments, but as of Wednesday afternoon he had not responded.
The next regular Randolph County BOE meeting will be Tuesday, May 6 at 5:30 p.m.