Fayette School Board’s Rabold responds to Sullivan’s critiques

My name is Roy Rabold. I currently represent Post 2 on the Fayette County School Board. Prior to my five and a half years serving on the school board I was an educator of 42 years. I served Fayette County for 31 of those 42 years as both an assistant principal and a principal.

I have always been of the mindset that you do not throw anyone under the bus when they make a mistake. I have been emailing Neil Sullivan about the mistakes in his weekly columns in the paper. I did this to challenge him to disseminate accurate information to the public. My contention has always been if you do not correct a mistake, then people will believe it.

Mr. Sullivan responded to me stating: “Realize the some of my articles are hoping to start the conversation, not just sir the pot.” In a recent article he stated the following: “For the record, while I appreciate private messages, I believe everyone deserves to be informed.” Based on this statement I decided to submit this article.

Let me start by saying I have appreciated the support of Neil Sullivan while he lived in Fayette County. He has been supportive of the school system in the past and is supportive in many of his articles.

I am not writing this letter because I do not accept criticism. I was a high school principal in Fayette County for seventeen years and have thick skin. Also, please note that I representing myself and not the Board of Education in this letter.

Let me begin with the elimination of teaching positions. This appeared to be topic of several of his articles.

Yes, it is true that we had to eliminate several positions due to budget constraints. Mr. Sullivan mentioned in one article that there were 200 positions at the county office.

What he did not explain was the following: Of those 200 positions, 50 were in the Exceptional Children’s Department of which 30 work directly with students in the schools. Approximately 20% of our student population qualifies for special services. That is almost 4,000 students.

42 of the positions were in Facility Services. We have 35 buildings that require service daily. 38 positions were in Student Achievement. This is what we are focusing on at the central office.

As the new curriculum changes come from the State Department of Education, who will train the teachers on those changes? Who will update teachers on the latest trends in education and teaching? That is their job. Those people need administrative assistants to help them.

We spend, on average, $115,000 per year on a teacher. This includes salary and benefits. Due to the 3% cap (which Mr. Sullivan did an excellent job of explaining) we lost $21.6 million last year. That equals 187 teaching positions.

We also have the QBE Equalization money we sent to the state. Again, Mr. Sullivan did an excellent job of explaining that in an article. This year that amount will be approximately $38.4 million.

Yes, I have spoken to Fayette Representative Josh Bonner and communicate with Fayette Senator Marty Harbin about this fact. It is never an easy decision when you must eliminate positions. The only plus is that we can do this through attrition and retirements. No one lost their job.

Another recurring theme is about finances. Mr. Sullivan references our reserve and why it is so high. He did mention in an article that the state recommended a 10% reserve and the school board at the time adopted it. That is true and we have a policy concerning the reserve.

Why the need for a 10% reserve? When I first came to Fayette County in 1986, every year the system had to borrow money to make payroll before the taxes were collected. We have not had to do that in many years due to our exceptional finance department.

This year, due to a new computer program at the tax assessor’s office, we will not receive our property tax revenue until January 2025. Normally we receive the bulk of that money in November and December. Our payroll and benefits for employees is approximately $20 million a month. We have already begun to make adjustments in cash management to try to eliminate the need to borrow money for employees’ salary and benefits.

None of this was our fault. This is what the reserve is for. If we must borrow money, banks do not loan it to us free and that will be an additional expense not counted on in our budget. With inflation running between 5% and 9% (depending on who you believe) our school budget for 2024-25 only increased approximately 3%.

In December I will have been on the board six years. In those six years we have had three public meetings on the budget and three meetings on the mileage rate. I can count on one hand the number of people that have spoken out and opposed our mileage rate and budget. Last year there were none.

Mr. Sullivan and several responders to his articles have lamented over the building of tennis courts and auxiliary gyms with E-SPLOST money. I will not go into what this money can be spent on as Mr. Sullivan did an excellent job on this subject. We use ESPLOST money for many other items.

Some examples are chromebooks, textbooks, safety equipment for the schools, facility upgrades and maintenance in our buildings, and school buses, to name a few.

We held community meetings at all the feeder patterns in the county with parents to assess their wants and needs for their schools. Auxiliary gyms, tennis courts, and playground upgrades were the top three items. All of these will benefit the students and their parents.

You ask how? When I was a principal, we had to contract with subdivisions or the county recreation department for the use of tennis courts. This was always under their terms. Practices were at odd hours and a convenience for parents. This will no longer happen. We can now also include playing tennis in our physical education curriculum.

The auxiliary gyms will eliminate the need for early morning practices for the 9th grade and junior varsity basketball teams. Again, a convenience for parents and students.

It will provide a practice facility for wrestling as well. It can also be used for physical education classes in the winter or when it is raining and classes can not go outside.

If we did not have ESPLOST money we would have to spend general fund money on many of these items or we would do without.

Continuing with finances, Mr. Sullivan mentioned the possibility of using private vendors for our food services. He indicated private schools in our area contract out their food services.

Private schools do not have to follow federal guidelines as to free and reduced lunch services as they receive no federal money. If we outsource food services, then the vendor that runs the program would get the federal reimbursement and all revenue.

The FY2024 free and reduced rate for the district was 35.45% The vendor would have operational control and be responsible for menu selection, personnel, free and reduced application processing, health department inspections, and pricing of meals.

Since our School Nutrition Program is self-supporting. There is no money from the general fund spent on the School Nutrition Program. There would be no savings by contracting this out to a private vendor.

He mentions contracting custodial services to a private vendor. The school district did look at outsourcing custodial services several years ago. The main deterrent for the Board was the custodial employees would not have as good of a benefits package as they have now.

The scenario did guarantee pay rates of current employees but they would no longer be under the State Health Benefit Plan or have other school district benefits. Future employees of the vendor would be at lower pay rates under a new benefits package. The savings under that system took several years to realize since the savings came from turning over the staff to pay at lower rates with lesser benefits package.

Lastly, Mr. Sullivan mentioned contracting out our bus services. We could save a lot of money by adhering to the state policy on the use of buses. It states that we are not required to transport students who live within a 1.5-mile radius of the school. I do not think the parents would support this idea.

Mr. Sullivan wrote an article titled, The Case for Community Coaches for our Fayette Schools. In the article he stated the following: younger coaches at our local academies (Home Plate, MOBA0 can take the position for the opportunity to sell lessons and memberships.”

The Georgia High School Association (which governs public school athletics in the state) has the following policy: “Neither coaches’ former coaches (including community coaches), nor any other school personnel shall suggest, require, or otherwise attempt to influence student to participate in or practice for a sport outside the GHSA – designated season.” There are also illegal practice rules which include community coaches.

In his article he also stated: In my son’s senior year, the community head baseball coach was a retired player from the Atlanta Braves.” This is a violation of GHSA rules. Community Coaches are not allowed to be head coaches. Surely Trinty Christian would follow the rules.

Again, my intent is not to criticize Mr. Sullivan for his articles. I just want to point out some errors in his articles so the public is receiving the best information. I appreciate the articles he has written but wonder why he continues to do so as he now lives in Coweta County.

Roy A. Rabold

Post 2, Fayette County Board of Education

Fayetteville, Ga.