Hoover school board calls special meeting for Tuesday night; job cuts likely

The Hoover school board has called a special meeting for 5:30 p.m. tonight, in part to further discuss the appointment of a new chief school finance officer.

School board President Derrick Murphy said as of this morning, he didn’t anticipate the board interviewing any more candidates, but the board will have public discussion about what it wants to do.

So far, the board has interviewed three finalists: Jefferson County Chief School Finance Officer Sheila Jones and former Birmingham Chief School Finance Officer Arthur Watts Jr. on April 25 and Jackson County Chief School Finance Officer Tina Hancock on May 9.

Read more about the interviews with Jones and Watts here and the interview with Hancock here.

Regardless of whether the board chooses a permanent replacement for Cathy Antee tonight, the board will need to appoint someone to serve in an interim capacity until a permanent chief school finance officer can come on board, Murphy said.

Antee’s contract is scheduled to expire on Friday, May 20, and even if a permanent replacement is appointed tonight, that person likely would need to provide adequate severance notice to their current employer, Murphy said.

The school board agenda also includes other personnel actions, and there usually are many at this time of year. Superintendent Kathy Murphy said in April there likely would be 15-20 positions cut at Hoover and Spain Park high schools for the next school year due to budget constraints, but exact positions being eliminated have not been announced.

School officials have been trying to identify the less popular electives, she said. The cuts at the high schools should save the school system $1.2 million to $1.8 million, she said.

Other jobs also are being cut, including at least one assistant principal, at least one counselor, some maintenance staff, a maintenance supervisor, district interventionist, tech support job and a child nutrition job, Kathy Murphy said. Those cuts should save about $950,000, she said.

Where possible, school officials are making those job cuts in conjunction with retirements and job reassignments, the superintendent said.