Schools restore sick time, lost wages
Jun. 14—The Cumberland County Board of Education will restore 72.5 sick days school personnel used to quarantine or recoup from COVID-19, and paid personnel for 88 days taken without pay.
"In January, this board agreed to extend those leave privileges and asked that we return with a calculation of what we would need to reimburse employees," Director of Schools Ina Maxwell said during the May 27 meeting.
Last year, the Families First Coronavirus Response Act provided paid leave of up to two weeks of paid sick leave for employees unable to work because they were quarantined or experiencing COVID-19 symptoms. It also provided benefits for individuals missing work to care for individuals who were under quarantine or caring for children during a closure of schools or childcare centers, paying two-thirds of their regular rate of pay. Employees could also qualify for an additional 10 weeks of expanded family and medical leave when they were unable to work due to closed schools or childcare centers.
That program ended Dec. 31, but there were employees who continued to need leave due to exposure to the virus.
The board approved a policy in January extending federal pandemic leave through the remainder of the school year.
There were 26 faculty and staff members who exceeded the policy's two-week leave allowance through the end of the school year. They requested 72.5 sick days be restored. Another 88 days were taken without pay. To reimburse those employees for their missed work will cost $7,169.27 in wages, $548.45 for taxes and $566.37 for state retirement contributions, for a total of $8,284.09.
Teresa Boston, 8th District representative, moved to restore sick days to employees, supported by Rebecca Hamby, 7th District representative.
Kim Bray, human resources supervisor, said the employees were paid for those days, but they had to use accumulated sick time to cover their absence.
The motion was unanimously approved.
The board was set to discuss its evaluation of Maxwell and its self evaluation, but there had been a problem with the online surveys completed by the board. At first, only six board members completed the evaluation during the set time period. When the survey was extended, a total of 10 responses were received from the nine-member board.
Board Attorney Earl Patton said, "I cannot tell you the survey is accurate. I'm going to ask that we move this to next month's agenda and let's reboot it and do it again.
"You want an accurate evaluation of your director of schools. You want an accurate evaluation of yourselves. At this point, unfortunately, that's probably the only way to do it."
Rebecca Hamby, 7th District representative, moved to table discussion of the evaluations until the June 24 meeting, supported by Anita Hale, 4th District representative. The motion was unanimously approved.
The board also won a default judgment against Pigeon Forge Hotels, LLC. The school system sought recovering of about $6,000 paid to the company for hotel room reservations for students to attend the Tennessee FFA Convention in March 2000. The event was canceled as concern about the novel coronavirus pandemic grew last spring.
The FFA Chapters at Stone Memorial High School and Cumberland County High School were unable to recoup the funds paid. Because federal funds were used for the reservations, the school system had to repay the money to federal budgets, compounding the loss.
"I spoke with the agent for that LLC today, and I think we're making progress," Patton said.
Heather Mullinix is editor of the Crossville Chronicle. She covers schools and education in Cumberland County. She may be reached at hmullinix@crossville-chronicle.com.
