New finance head to receive training
Doug Brown has started working as a chief financial officer in the Pulaski County Special School District, where he will work for a short time with Bill Goff, who holds the same job title but is scheduled to retire June 30.
Brown of White Hall most recently was a public school finance specialist for the Arkansas Public School Resource Center.
His salary in his new position will be $130,052.
Jerry Guess, superintendent of the Pulaski County Special district, said the overlap of the two chief finance officer positions will enable Brown to learn from Goff about the district and its $200 million budget. The district is in the fourth year of state control for "fiscal distress," a 2011 classification that resulted from audit findings of mismanagement and the spending of reserve funds to meet expenses.
In his remaining months in the district, Goff will provide training for Brown and develop budgets for the coming years that take into account the loss of $20.8 million per year in desegregation aid after the 2017-18 school year and the loss of local tax revenue from the Jacksonville/North Pulaski School District, which will detach from the Pulaski County Special district within the next two years.
Brown was director of finance in the Pine Bluff School District from 2006 to 2011. He was a senior field auditor for the Arkansas Division of Legislative Audit from 1973 to 2006.
The Pine Bluff native has a bachelor's degree in accounting from Henderson State University.
Closure plan goes to advisory board
Pulaski County Special School District administrators will present their plans for shuttering two schools for the 2015-16 school year to the district's Community Advisory Board when that board meets at 6:30 p.m. Monday at the district's administration building, 925 E. Dixon Road.
Superintendent Jerry Guess is proposing the closure of the 130-pupil Scott Elementary in east Pulaski County and the 380-pupil Northwood Middle School in the Gravel Ridge community to help the district cut expenses and operate more efficiently in the face of reduced revenue and declining enrollment.
If the closures are approved, the Scott pupils would be reassigned to Harris Elementary in the McAlmont community. Pupils living in the Northwood attendance zone would be divided between Jacksonville Middle School and Sylvan Hills Middle School in Sherwood. Those students reassigned to Jacksonville Middle are those who live in the new Jacksonville /North Pulaski School District, which will detach from Pulaski County Special within the next two years.
The community board is an advisory body to Arkansas Education Commissioner Tony Wood. The Pulaski County Special district is operating under state control because of "fiscal distress" and has no locally elected school board.
The advisory board is expected to hear the presentation but not make a decision on what to recommend to Wood until the board's February meeting, district spokesman Deborah Roush said Friday.
Metro on 01/10/2015