Colfax school board restores coach pay

The Colfax school board reversed its decision to cut one percent from all extracurricular pay Monday night by approving a motion to write the money back into the district’s contracts, which number approximately 45.

The board voted two to one on the motion with board members Debbie Pearson and Robert Smith in favor and Steve Lyon opposed. Board member Brian Becker abstained, and board chair Laura Johnson did not vote.

The decision came in the wake of a month-long controversy, which began Sept. 14, when the board voted to cut all district extracurricular staff pay by one percent on hearing the news the Knowledge Bowl program was set to be eliminated. The money from that pay cut was intended to pay for the Knowledge Bowl program.

After that vote was passed, extracurricular staff contracts were rewritten the next morning with the one percent cut.

After the vote Monday night, district staffers again revised the contracts back to the original amounts. The contracts were passed out yesterday, Oct. 14.

Money taken out of extracurricular pay for the month when the one percent cut was in effect will be paid back in the next extracurricular paychecks, said Superintendent Michael Morgan.

On Sept. 28, two weeks after the board made its initial vote, two representatives from the extracurricular staff came to a board meeting to protest the cuts.

“I’m not opposed to the Knowledge Bowl program, but I am opposed, <as well as> most of my colleagues and advisors, are opposed to the cut in our pay,” Volleyball Coach Sue Doering told the board.

Teacher Cathy Landers came on behalf of all the ASB athletic and non-athletic programs and told the board her staff was upset. Landers gave the board several suggestions on alternatives for funding. At that board meeting, school board president Johnson told the two reps and the others in the audience the board would reconsider their motion and look into other funding.

An anonymous donation of $500 was made to the Knowledge Bowl program and announced at that meeting by Johnson.

It takes roughly $2,000 to fund the Knowledge Bowl program. It is still up in the air where the rest of that money will come from, said Morgan. The majority of the $2,000 goes to pay the salary of the program coach. Morgan said they will use the $500 donation to cover the balance of Knowledge Bowl expenses for the year.

Also at the Oct. 12 meeting, the board hired Christopher Clausen as Knowledge Bowl coach.

While it was believed by multiple parties at the Sept. 14 meeting that the program was set to be eliminated, Morgan later pointed out that the program had been slated to be “non-budgeted.” This meant they would try to have a volunteer for the position of coach throughout the year, then try to come up with funding the next year.