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Hermleigh ISD Business Manager Marci Beard (left) looked over paperwork after David Digby and Joe Taylor were sworn in as the newest member of the Hermleigh ISD board of trustees Thursday night.
The Hermleigh ISD board of trustees, on Thursday, approved a resolution calling for the removal of the state’s funding penalty against small schools that are less than 300 square miles in size.
The penalty was put in place in the 1970s by legislators who wanted to encourage small school districts to consolidate. Hermleigh ISD has paid a penalty each year for decades and this past year, the school was penalized $330,000.
Superintendent Brent Dawson said he hopes repealing the penalty will lead to an end of Additional State Aid for Tax Reduction (ASATR). He said one of the reasons the state kept the penalty in place was to offset the costs of the ASATR program.
If the state no longer pays ASATR, Dawson said there might be a better chance of the penalty being removed.
“If they do extend ASATR, it’s probably a long shot (to repeal the penalty),” Dawson said. “ASATR isn’t the problem, though. The system (school financing) needs to be revamped.”
The board received a clean audit opinion from Michael Hamby of the Merritt, McLane and Hamby accounting firm. Hamby credited Hermleigh ISD Business Manager Marci Beard for being proactive and helping the audit go smoothly.
“Marci got us all the information we needed for the audit,” Hamby said. “She got us a bunch of it before we even came out here this summer.”
The board canvassed the results of the Nov. 8 board election and David Digby and Joe Taylor were sworn in as the newest board members, along with incumbents Roy Gill and Larry Don Nachlinger.
The board elected Gill as board president, Nachlinger as vice president and Jim Lionberger as secretary.
The board recognized the outgoing board members, Tommy Berry and Billy Joe Digby, who were not in attendance. Dawson said they will receive a certificate and a lifetime pass to all Hermleigh ISD sporting events for their service on the board.
The board recognized Mia Pence as the elementary student of the second six weeks and John Garcia as the secondary student of the second six weeks.
Following a 41-minute closed session to discuss personnel, the board took no action.