Hoover school board to hold special meeting Friday morning

The Hoover Board of Education has called a special meeting for 7:30 a.m. Friday to consider an amendment to an agreement that allows the school system to recover some money paid into Medicaid.

Superintendent Kathy Murphy said earlier this month that the amendment would allow Hoover schools to get more money reimbursed from Medicaid than it has gotten in the past.

However, some school board members questioned whether Hoover could do better to work out its own agreement with Medicaid and get even more money back than it is currently getting by working through a consortium organized by the Alabama Association of School Boards.

The existing agreement handled through AASB is administered by Tallassee City Schools. Some Hoover school board members said both Tallassee and AASB get to keep a portion of the money returned from Medicaid as administrative fees, and they wondered whether Hoover could do this work itself and get more money back.

Murphy told the school board on Oct. 5 that she believes there can only be one consortium from each state handling the agreement and only one fiscal agent for each consortium.

The Hoover school system’s chief financial officer, Cathy Antee, said then she believed Hoover typically receives $150,000 to $200,000 a year back from Medicaid.

Murphy said the Hoover school system is set to receive a little more than $100,000 back from Medicaid for the first quarter of this year alone if it approves the amendment. However, she had additional questions about the program that were still unresolved as of the board’s Oct. 5 meeting.

The board chose then to table the Medicaid agreement amendment to allow more time to get answers. The AASB was asking for a reply from Hoover by Oct. 31. That’s why the school board is meeting again Friday instead of waiting to address the matter at its regular November meeting.

The board’s agenda for Friday’s meeting also includes personnel actions, the selection of a board member to serve as a delegate to AASB, and an executive session. No reason was listed for the executive session on the agenda.

The meeting will be held at the Farr Administration Building at 2810 Metropolitan Way.