The Fort Stockton Independent School District School Board passed a COVID-19 reimbursement resolution for full-time employees at Monday’s regular school board meeting on Dec. 14.

Full-time employees in the district will be paid a one-time amount of $1,200 for extra expenses incurred due to impact of COVID-19 on their work situations by the end of the week.

“The resolution was put together based on the need for the district to consider reimbursing our employees for extra expenses that they’ve incurred because of COVID and we’ve dealt with COVID now since March,” FSISD Superintendent Ralph Traynham said at Monday’s meeting.

The $1,200 amount was derived from the fact of the district wanting their fulltime employees to take home around $1,000 after taxes.

“We wanted the employees to at least hopefully clear right at a $1,000 so that the $200 extra will help make up the difference in taxes,” Traynham added.

Before taking action on the resolution, a public hearing was held addressing the specifics of the resolution.

The resolution document in the meeting’s packet stated a variety of extra expenses full-time employees have incurred such as: utility costs, COVID-19 related supplies such as masks, hand sanitizers, usage of personal cell phones, vehicle costs from home visits to help students and explain lessons to parents, classroom supplies to aid in delivery of remote learning, modifications of employee’s homes to allow for remote instruction, upgrades to internet service to accommodate remote learning, additional attire for more protection while cleaning facilities.

The resolution was passed unanimously by the board following the hearing.

FSISD RECEIVES SUPERIOR RATING ON FIRST REPORT

Two fiscal years ago the Fort Stockton Independent School District received 98 points out of 100 on the FIRST Report to classify their rating as superior.

The school once again earned a superior rating the past fiscal year, receiving 96 points out of 100.

The report was revelated at Monday’s school board meeting on Dec. 14.

FIRST is the state’s school financial accountability rating system and stands for Financial Integrity Rating System of Texas. FIRST ensures that Texas public schools are held accountable for the quality of their financial management practices. The system is designed to encourage Texas Public schools to better manage their financial resources to provide the maximum allocation possible for direct instructional purposes.