Nov 18, 2003 By Steve Ostrosky 3 min read

JEFFERSON – Directors in the Jefferson-Morgan School District voted Monday to forgive six years of outstanding debt from the cafeteria fund owed to the district’s general fund, to the tune of $321,000. Business manager Michael Conte said the debt has carried over every year since 1998 and directors have never voted to forgive the money, even though there is very little possibility that the cafeteria fund will ever be able to pay back the money owed.

The total forgiven is $321,308, but will not impact the district’s total fund balance even though the general fund will now be smaller.

“By forgiving the debt, the cafeteria fund will increase by $321,308 because there is no longer any debt in that fund, but the general fund will decrease by the same amount,” Conte said. “We have the same amount before as we will after, it is just an accounting procedure.”

Directors voted 7-0 to approve the action, with Director Mark Pochron out of town and Director Donna Shaffer absent Monday.

In another issue, the board voted to ratify a nine-month contract with Equitable Gas that charges the district rates similar to what other districts in the Intermediate Unit Consortium are already paying.

The district’s previous natural gas contract expired Oct. 31.

Conte said the Intermediate Unit 1 works with the gas company to negotiate a better price for the entire consortium. The contract with Equitable Gas locks in rates of $10.47 per million cubic feet at the Central and maintenance buildings and, and $10.55 per million cubic feet for the main school campus.

After the contract has expired, the district will enter into the consortium and continue to receive the negotiated rates.

The rate is higher than the $8.74 per million cubic feet the district is currently paying, but Conte said the rate would probably be much higher if the district went out on its own and negotiated a contract with a natural gas company.

In other matters, the directors voted to hire Chad Plesko as a high school English teacher at step one of the professional contract, and also voted to hire Dave Devecka as head baseball coach.

They voted to set their annual reorganization meeting for Dec. 3 at 7 p.m. in the elementary school library, with the regular December meeting to immediately follow.

Finally, the directors thanked outgoing member Cecil Burton for his four years of service to the school board. He did not seek re-election and will be replaced by newcomer Bob Greenlee on the board.

“I think we have accomplished a lot without going overboard on the spending,” Burton said.

“We have hired qualified teachers and staff, we’ve made good steps and I appreciate working with you guys.”