Tim Leeds Havre Daily News tleeds@havredailynews.com
The Hill County Superintendent has told the Hill County Commission she will recommend the commissioners do not approve the full amount the Havre Public Schools has requested from the county- wide transportation and retirement levies due to questions of the legality of their request. At a meeting Monday to discuss Hill County school district budget requests, County Superintendent Shirley Isbell said state law requires that employees paid through sources other than general funds, such as federal grants, must have their retirement paid through the same fund. She said that because of the number of paraprofessionals employed by the Havre School District, she believes the district is requesting retirement funds from the county that should be paid through other sources. The Commission did approve the levies for the county’s school districts’ general budgets, which were proposed by the districts’ boards and approved by the voters in school district elections last spring. Havre Public Schools Superintendent Dennis Parman, who attended Monday’s meeting along with the district’s clerk and four school board trustees, said he thought the county-wide levy would be discussed during that meeting, but since it was not he said that they would return Sept. 29 to discuss the issue. “We have lots to say and lots of information to give you, but it sounds like this isn’t the appropriate time,” he said. Commissioner Kathy Bessette said she also thought the county-wide levy would be discussed Monday. Isbell said she is still computing the amount that should be funded through the county transportation and retirement levy, and will discuss that with the County Commission on Sept. 29 instead. She said she will present several options to the commission at that time, including approving a levy with the full request by the Havre schools and an option without the full amount. “No matter what we do, there’s going to be an increase,” she added. In an interview this morning, she said she has reviewed the requests of two of the five public agencies school districts and the Bear Paw Special Education Cooperative which request funds from the transportation and retirement levy, and those two are correct. She said if the remaining three also show their numbers are accurate, she would present only one figure to the commission, with the agencies’ full requested amounts. Isbell said during Monday's meeting that she believes the same problem with incorrectly using county funds occurred last year, but she did not catch it in time to take the same action then. “(The commissioners) depend upon me to make sure whatever they approve is correct and I goofed last year ,” she said. “I don’t want to make the same mistake this year.” Parman said after the meeting that the assumption is that Havre Public Schools is improperly using county funds. “Which we are not, nor have we ever done it,” He said. The district has the documentation to show its request is proper, and that will be shown to the commission before it makes a decision on Sept. 29, he said. The tone of Isbell’s letter led him to believe there was no reason to show her that documentation, Parman said. “She said (in the letter) she would not be taking our request to the commissioners and listed a number of reasons why,” he said. In the letter dated Sept. 5, 2008, Isbell writes that data collection shows that a number of personnel are paid through federal Title I grants, which means their benefits, including retirement funds, must be paid through those grants. Isbell also wrote that since the Havre High School and elementary districts were “clearly overpaid for the ’08 (fiscal year), the amount of over payment may have to be deducted from the current year’s request.” Isbell said after Monday’s meeting that she is not certain whether the county can address an overpayment in previous years. She said she is researching that and is also working on computing the exact amount that the Havre district should receive if some of the retirement funds requested should not be paid
