The Brownwood ISD is considering re-hiring a new full time community relations coordinator to replace Emily Crawford who left the position earlier this year. The district Public Relations Committee made a recommendation to BISD to re-hire the position. Officials at Monday’s Brownwood ISD school board meeting discussed the issue and weighed the pros and cons of the position.
“We put this off since Emily left because we knew that we had other obligations such as making sure we had enough teachers, giving our teachers some raises that they deserved and having a balanced budget,” said Brownwood ISD Superintendent Reece Blincoe. “With that said, we did meet all of our commitments that we wanted to meet and … I believe the salary for the position is also built in to this year’s budget.”
School board trustees all agreed that the past coordinator played an important role for the district, but they differed on the timing of hiring the position due to future budget concerns.
“I know that Emily did a fantastic job, it is evident in ways that can’t be quantified, but when we start to think of the future all I am thinking about is cost,” said school board trustee Michael Cloy. “My stance is; I agree that this is a great thing, but I would personally like to wait a year.”
Other school board members expressed their support for the position and said that they believe the position would pay for itself.
“I do believe that there is a residual that comes from this particular position that, though hard to quantify, I think it is easy to see by our attendance, by our enrollment, by the communications that our community gets to experience at a different level,” said school board trustee Eric Evans. “This position, to me, will help to offset needing to do that (make cuts) especially going into next year and the issues we are going to face next year when it comes to our budget.”
“That is precisely why I would be cautious about this, because of the issues we are going to face next year,” Cloy said in response. “What we continually hear is how much worse it is going to be next year so you hire someone and you are scrambling around to pay for them next year. Why not wait a year. Let’s see if we can really afford it next year.”
Blincoe said that he believes the district is on track to be in a good financial position by the end of the school year with the current enrollment and potential legislation that might infuse the district with some new money for jobs.
“I don’t believe I would be visiting with you about this if I didn’t believe that we were going to be in okay shape,” Blincoe said. “We banked about $600,000 more than thought we were going to bank. If we keep up with our enrollment … you are going to see us bank similar amounts next year.”
The ultimate decision to hire the community relations position sits with the school administration not requiring a vote by the school board on the issue, but they issued their feedback on moving forward. Blincoe said that the district will be posting the position for hire in the near future.
