Elmer Thomas tapped as interim superintendent at BCS

Elmer Thomas was selected to serve as interim superintendent of Berea Independent School District Monday in a 4-0-1 vote, stepping in for Dr. Diane Hatchett, who has agreed to go on paid administrative leave pending an investigation of the district’s finances. 

J. Morgan, Sarah Rohrer, Tom McCay and Nathaniel Hatchett voted to approve Thomas’s contract hire, which runs through June 30 at a cost of $568 per day. Dr. Jacqueline Burnside abstained from the vote on Thomas after questioning whether the cost of hiring an outside candidate was justified in the midst of the district’s financial troubles. 

Having retired as superintendent of the Madison County School District after a stint from 2013-2018, Thomas, who once taught at Berea Community School, has since gained a reputation for helping schools in crisis. 

An adjunct professor of education at Eastern Kentucky University and Ashbury University, Thomas has served as interim superintendent of the Danville Independent School District and in Clark County Public Schools. 

The hire came on the heels of a unanimous vote by the board which approved Hatchett’s administrative leave. Hatchett, who briefly attended Monday’s meeting to deliver the superintendent’s report, left before discussion of the investigation.

Board Chair J. Morgan said he is encouraged that Thomas is taking the job.  

“He has a great reputation across the state of Kentucky for being an excellent superintendent and since he retired, he has been working with other districts that have encountered similar difficulties,” Morgan said.  

Thomas’s duties will be to investigate the district’s financial troubles and to recommend new operating policies. Morgan expressed hope that Thomas will also establish procedures for better communication and public transparency, creating a solid foundation for the permanent superintendent to help the district move forward. 

In other action, the board unanimously voted to discontinue a $1.3 million contract to install solar panels on most of the flat roofs of the school’s buildings. Under the proposal, the district will form escrow accounts to repay outstanding bonds, purchase U.S. treasuries, and work on a plan to reduce the debt with early payments by June 2031. 

The district agreed to the $1.3 million solar project in 2023 at the request of Director of Operations Tony Tompkins and recommendation of Hatchett. The contract was then unanimously approved by then-board members Rebecca Blankenship, Van Gravitt, Jarred Penn, Tom McCay and Burnside. 

McCay said the district has no outlet with which to sell the city excess energy, which might have helped to mitigate the project’s cost. In a public forum last week, Berea Mayor Bruce Fraley explained the city can’t buy a certain level of energy from the district without violating its own contract with its power providers. 

The fact that the project hasn’t been completed has had serious consequences, said acting finance director Nathan Sweet. 

“A large part of this year’s deficit in the budget has to do with a $600,000 tax credit that we had expected to have deposited by now,” Sweet told officials at the March 17 meeting. “The project was supposed to be complete by now, and the tax credit was going to pay off a large portion of the bonds that were to be taken out to fund the project. Since that hasn’t come to fruition, there’s that large, large payment sitting out there in June. As a whole, the project has been an obstacle to us.”

Morgan emphasized the missing tax credit is not the reason for the $1.3 million budget shortfall. 

Some concerned parents, who have conducted their own research of school records, speculate that disregard of district reimbursement procedures and board approval requirements led to overspending and a lack of financial accountability beginning in 2022. 

For example, their research suggests that Hatchett made direct purchases with the district credit card, but then failed to justify those expenditures later by following established reimbursement/reporting procedures. The same parents assert Hatchett incurred excessive travel expenses that included out-of-state trips.  

But Sweet has pointed out several other factors that have contributed to the district’s financial troubles, including the fact that some positions were retained after the grants funding them expired.  

“It’s very easy in the shuffle of summer and just all the chaos of the school year for things to slip through the cracks, and in my analysis, I found several of the positions that we have had to cut were, in all honesty, never formally approved,” Sweet said. He recommended tracking all positions to prevent that from happening again. 

In one other example of unnecessary overspending, Sweet stated that the administration inadvertently left a pandemic policy in place wherein the district was contracted with a custodial staff at the same time teachers were also receiving cleaning stipends. 

“The combination of the two is way more expensive than a regular custodial staff,” Sweet said. “And we found that if we hire a full custodial staff like we had prior to COVID, we can save between $150,000 and $160,000.”

Other factors Sweet noted included overly optimistic revenue projections, which had the district taking in $14.6 million at the start of the budget year. Sweet said his revenue projection is closer to $12.2 million. He recommended more conservative estimates in the future. “That’s really at the core of our problem,” Sweet said. 

The board met in executive session to discuss the search for a new superintendent. No decision or action was announced.