North Greene raises athletic officials fees
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By Carmen Ensinger
Athletic officials officiating at North Greene will see an increase in their paychecks next year after school board members voted to increase the fee at the high school level at the May 17 board meeting.
Officials will see an increase in pay for officiating at football games, girls basketball games and volleyball games.
“In football, we are looking to bump the pay from $80 to $90 which will put us on the low end of the pay scale because some schools are paying $150 each for football,” High School Principal Brett Berry said. “Unfortunately, it is a vicious cycle that we are seeing. The shortage of officials is very real. Schools like Camp Point are paying $150 each.”
Berry said some assigners are requiring schools to pay $125 or more or they won’t even assign games.
“I reached out to a crew of officials last year and they said they aren’t even going to come for anything under $125,” Berry said. “So, to stay competitive, at least in this immediate area, we tried to go up to $90 for varsity and $80 for JV games.”
Berry said the sport they were really behind on was volleyball.
“We were paying $70 for both the JV and varsity contests for volleyball,” he said. “We were at the very bottom of the barrel there so we had to bump that up to $80 to stay competitive.
Apparently, the district was paying referees for the girls games less than they were for the boys games so it was decided to increase the pay for the girls games to $80 for varsity and $70 for JV contests.
“These increases will allow us to continue to keep the crews that are loyal to us by showing them we are looking to work with them,” Berry said. “We are competitive with the other local schools like Carrollton and Greenfield. Brown County is still way more than anyone else in the conference.”
The board approved the hiring of two confidential employees to assist District Secretary Rhonda Lawson during the months of June and July. Those employees are Lisa Vincent and Bailey Berry. Lawson explained why they were her choices for the position.
“Lisa is a teacher with the ACE program so she is in the building all the time and confidentiality is not a problem for her,” Lawson said. “Bailey Berry is the kid of a teacher and principal and she knows she can’t talk about things she might see.”
Lawson said she wanted them to clear out an office for incoming Superintendent Jackie Kuchy and that that requires moving files, some of which might be confidential. They will work eight hours a day at a rate of $15 an hour.
“I based their rate of pay on what Chuck McEvers will be paying his kids in the summer work program,” Lawson said. “I maxed out the hours at 320 for the summer.”
The board approved the agreement with the Job Center to host the summer work program for 20 student workers. The students will be paid at a rate of $15 per hour at no cost to the district.
The district will be responsible for the salary of the supervisor, Chuck McEvers who will be paid for 260 hours over the summer for supervising the students and the work they do. Total cost for McEvers salary will be $7,205.
The board considered it money well spent since the students did a lot of work around the district and in the community last year.
The board awarded the bid for the asphalt repair and resurfacing at the unit office, junior/senior high school and elementary school to Matticks Asphalt who submitted a bid of $42,742.27 to do repairs at all three places.
They also approved entering into a contractual agreement with JCI to provide maintenance and service on the controls at the junior/senior high.
A total of 240 Chromebooks were designated as surplus property and will be disposed of. Early Beginnings had requested 10 to 15 of them and the board decided to give them 20. The rest will be donated to the community.
The district is also taking sealed bids on two buses – a 1997 71 passenger bus and a 2008 14-passenger bus, both of which run.
Sealed bids are due in the District Office by June 14 at 1 p.m. and the bids will be awarded at the June 23 meeting. Bidders who are present at the bid opening will have the opportunity to raise their bid.
