The Oconee County Board of Education on Monday night, after spending nearly an hour in executive session, voted unanimously in open session to extend the contract of Superintendent Jason Branch until June 30 of 2027.
The Board provided no details of the contract other than the end date, and Board Chair Kim Argo refused to provide a copy of the contract, saying it would be made available only in response to an open records request.
Oconee County Schools did issue a news release at 8:23 p.m., about 40 minutes after the meeting ended, saying that Branch will receive a 4 percent raise and a step increase and that all other provisions of his contract remain unchanged.
The Board, after the executive session, also voted on a slate of personnel changes requested by Branch.
Those, too, were not released to the public following the vote. Normally they are released at noon on the following day.
The executive session followed a 40 minute long work session, at which the Board received its usual superintendent’s report as well as a Teaching and Learning Report, Technology Report, Human Resources Report, Operations Report, and Communications Report.
In his superintendent’s report, Branch said that the Board needed to redo two of its tax hearings because the Georgia Department of Revenue informed him that the earlier ones had not been properly advertised.
Those hearings are scheduled for 10 a.m. and 2 p.m. on Aug. 16 and will be followed by a special session at 2:30 p.m. to ratify the millage rate of 14.25, which represents a tax increase of 2.27 percent.
Announcement Of Contract Extension
The agenda for the Monday meeting gave no indication the Board was going to consider Branch’s contract, consistent with how the Board has handled extensions in recent years.
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| Branch Explaining Need For Redo On Tax Hearings 8/5/2024 |
Unlike in the past, however, Oconee County Schools did send out a social media post and press release after the meeting ended announcing that the Board had extended Branch’s contract.
It also announced the two rescheduled tax hearing.
The Board voted unanimously nearly a year ago--on Aug. 14, 2023--to extend Branch’s contract to June 30, 2026, with a base salary of $253,071 and added benefits that were budgeted to bring that amount to $284,810.
The contract stipulated that the Board would inform Branch before Aug. 31, 2024, whether it would extend the contract beyond June 30, 2026.
The agenda for that Aug. 14, 2023, meeting did not indicate that the Board was considering Branch’s contract. The personnel report, released after the meeting, made no mention of the Board action.
Only the minutes of that meeting, released several days later, stated that the contract was extended. However, that contract was not attached to the minutes.
End Of Executive Session
When the Board returned to the meeting room on Monday night after spending the nearly hour in another room in executive session, Argo turned to Branch, who said he recommended personnel changes “as presented.”
Nothing had been presented to the public.
Then Board Member Tim Burgess said “Ms. Argo I also would like to make a motion that we approve a new contract for our superintendent, Dr. Branch, that would extend his term with us until June of 2027.”
Board Member Amy Parrish seconded the motion.
Without any discussion, the Board passed the motion with a vote of 5 to 0.
Argo then adjourned the meeting.
Request For Contract
I then approached Argo and said “I would like to have a copy of the contract.”
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| Yancey Stepping Between Me and Argo As I Asked For Contract Approved By Board 8/5/2024 |
“It’s not available yet,” Argo said. “I’m sure it will be–if you’ll put in open records request it will be.”
“You just passed that in an open meeting,” I responded.
“We still haven’t signed it,” Argo responded.
At that point, Kevin Yancey, Director of Student Services for Oconee County Schools, stepped between me and Argo.
“Open records, they’ll give you a copy,” Yancey said as he directed me back to where I had been sitting.
“That’s crazy,” I mumbled as I returned to my seat.
Yancey followed me as I walked and then turned his back and stood in front of me.
“Mr. Yancey, Mr. Colquitt, Thank you,” Argo said as she left the room.
Yancey and Director of Communications Steven Colquitt had stayed in the room while I waited for the Board to return from executive session. I was the only citizen who did stay.
Error On Tax Hearing
During his report to the Board, Branch said “I do want to update the Board on a budget process item that came to our attention last week. The Georgia Department of Revenue notified us last week that we did have a technical reporting discrepancy regarding our July 1 millage hearings.”
“State law says that districts must advertise the hearing during the week prior in the newspaper,” he said. “We did do that. But since the Department of Revenue has stated to us that a week is defined as seven days plus one, and so we were not in compliance with that particular interpretation of the law.”
“So we’re committed to resolve this matter and taking care of the necessary steps to ensure that we move forward appropriately,” he said. “So as the Board knows, we’re going to provide notice in the legal organ this week for additional hearings.”
The Oconee Enterprise is the county’s legal organ.
“We’ll have two additional hearings using the seven days plus one,” he said. “The earliest we could schedule those two hearings would be Aug. 16, which is a Friday. We’ll have those two hearings at 10 a.m. and at 2 p.m. followed by a special session at 2:30 p.m. to ratify the millage rate at time.”
“The millage rate recommendation continues to be 14.25 mills for the Fiscal Year 2025,” Branch said. “I wanted to provide that update to the Board and the community as you go forward.”
The Board set the millage rate at 14.25 on July 8 after holding hearings on that date as well as on July 1.
The hearings were required because the Board did not roll back the millage rate to 13.934, which would have compensated for inflationary growth in the tax digest.
The state calculates the tax increase as 2.27 percent.
Video
I recorded a video of the entire Aug. 5 Board of Education meeting.
Oconee County Schools also records the meetings and uploads the recordings to its YouTube Channel. The video is not yet available as I post this story.
The Oconee County Schools video does not usually include the parts of the meeting following the executive session.
The Board extended Branch’s contract in that part of the meeting, which is below.
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