Senate Bill No. 569
(By Senator Dempsey)
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[Introduced March 17, 2005; referred to the Committee
on Education; and then to the Committee on Finance.]
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A BILL to amend and reenact §18-5-13 of the Code of West Virginia,
1931, as amended, relating to county boards of education
generally; and providing that county boards of education shall
disburse any surplus funds to supplement the salaries of
teachers and service personnel.
Be it enacted by the Legislature of West Virginia:
That §18-5-13 of the Code of West Virginia, 1931, as amended,
be amended and reenacted to read as follows:
ARTICLE 5. COUNTY BOARD OF EDUCATION.
§18-5-13. Authority of boards generally.
Each county board, subject to the provisions of this chapter
and the rules of the State Board, has the authority:
(a) To control and manage all of the schools and school
interests for all school activities and upon all school property,
whether owned or leased by the county, including the authority to require that records be kept of all receipts and disbursements of
all funds collected or received by any principal, teacher, student
or other person in connection with the schools and school
interests, any programs, activities or other endeavors of any
nature operated or carried on by or in the name of the school, or
any organization or body directly connected with the school, to
audit the records and to conserve the funds, which shall be
considered quasipublic moneys, including securing surety bonds by
expenditure of board moneys;
(b) To establish schools, from preschool through high school,
inclusive of vocational schools; and to establish schools, programs
or both, for post-high school instruction, subject to approval of
the State Board;
(c) To close any school which is unnecessary and to assign the
pupils of the school to other schools: Provided, That the closing
shall be officially acted upon, and teachers and service personnel
involved notified on or before the first Monday in April, in the
same manner as provided in section four of this article, except in
an emergency, subject to the approval of the State Superintendent,
or under subdivision (e) of this section;
(d) To consolidate schools;
(e) To close any elementary school whose average daily
attendance falls below twenty pupils for two months in succession
and send the pupils to other schools in the district or to schools in adjoining districts. If the teachers in the closed school are
not transferred or reassigned to other schools, they shall receive
one month's salary;
(f)(1) To provide at public expense adequate means of
transportation, including transportation across county lines for
students whose transfer from one district to another is agreed to
by both county boards as reflected in the minutes of their
respective meetings, for all children of school age who live more
than two miles distance from school by the nearest available road;
to provide at public expense, according to such rules as the board
may establish, adequate means of transportation for school children
participating in county board-approved curricular and
extracurricular activities; to provide at public expense, by rules
and within the available revenues, transportation for those within
two miles distance; and to provide, at no cost to the county board
and according to rules established by the board, transportation for
participants in projects operated, financed, sponsored or approved
by the Commission on Aging, all subject to the following:
(A) All costs and expenses incident in any way to
transportation for projects connected with the Commission on Aging
shall be borne by the Commission or the local or county chapter of
the Commission;
(B) In all cases, the school buses owned by the county board
shall be driven or operated only by drivers regularly employed by the county board;
(C) The county board may provide, under rules established by
the State Board, for the certification of professional employees as
drivers of county board-owned vehicles with a seating capacity of
less than ten passengers used for the transportation of pupils for
school-sponsored activities other than transporting students
between school and home. The use of the vehicles shall be limited
to one for each school-sponsored activity; and
(D) Buses shall be used for extracurricular activities as
provided in this section only when the insurance provided for by
this section is in effect;
(2) To enter into agreements with one another as reflected in
the minutes of their respective meetings to provide, on a
cooperative basis, adequate means of transportation across county
lines for children of school age subject to the conditions and
restrictions of this subsection and subsection (h) of this section;
(g)(1) To lease school buses operated only by drivers
regularly employed by the county board to public and private
nonprofit organizations or private corporations to transport
school-age children to and from camps or educational activities in
accordance with rules established by the county board. All costs
and expenses incurred by or incidental to the transportation of the
children shall be borne by the lessee;
(2) To contract with any college or university or officially recognized campus organizations to provide transportation for
college or university students, faculty or staff to and from the
college or university. Only college and university students,
faculty and staff may be transported pursuant to this section. The
contract shall include consideration and compensation for bus
operators, repairs and other costs of service, insurance and any
rules concerning student behavior;
(h) To provide at public expense for insurance against the
negligence of the drivers of school buses, trucks or other vehicles
operated by the board; and if the transportation of pupils is
contracted, then the contract for the transportation shall provide
that the contractor shall carry insurance against negligence in an
amount specified by the board;
(i) To provide solely from county board funds for all regular
full-time employees of the county board all or any part of the cost
of a group plan or plans of insurance coverage not provided or
available under the West Virginia Public Employees Insurance Act;
(j) To employ teacher aides, to provide in-service training
for teacher aides, the training to be in accordance with rules of
the State Board and, in the case of service personnel assuming
duties as teacher aides in exceptional children programs, to
provide a four-clock-hour program of training prior to the
assignment which shall, in accordance with rules of the State
Board, consist of training in areas specifically related to the education of exceptional children;
(k) To establish and conduct a self-supporting dormitory for
the accommodation of the pupils attending a high school or
participating in a post-high school program and of persons employed
to teach in the high school or post-high school program;
(l) At the board's discretion, to employ, contract with or
otherwise engage legal counsel in lieu of utilizing the prosecuting
attorney to advise, attend to, bring, prosecute or defend, as the
case may be, any matters, actions, suits and proceedings in which
the board is interested;
(m) To provide appropriate uniforms for school service
personnel;
(n) To provide at public expense and under rules as
established by any county board for the payment of traveling
expenses incurred by any person invited to appear to be interviewed
concerning possible employment by the county board;
(o) To allow or disallow their designated employees to use
publicly provided carriage to travel from their residences to their
workplace and return: Provided, That the usage is subject to the
supervision of the county board and is directly connected with and
required by the nature and in the performance of the employee's
duties and responsibilities;
(p) To provide, at public expense, adequate public liability
insurance, including professional liability insurance for county board employees;
(q) To enter into agreements with one another to provide, on
a cooperative basis, improvements to the instructional needs of
each district. The cooperative agreements may be used to employ
specialists in a field of academic study or support functions or
services, for the academic study. The agreements are subject to
approval by the State Board;
(r) To provide information about vocational or higher
education opportunities to students with handicapping conditions.
The county board shall provide in writing to the students and their
parents or guardians information relating to programs of vocational
education and to programs available at state funded institutions of
higher education. The information may include sources of available
funding, including grants, mentorships and loans for students who
wish to attend classes at institutions of higher education;
(s) To enter into agreements with one another, with the
approval of the State Board, for the transfer and receipt of any
and all funds determined to be fair when students are permitted or
required to attend school in a district other than the district of
their residence; and
(t) To enter into job-sharing arrangements, as defined in
section one, article one, chapter eighteen-a of this code, with its
employees, subject to the following provisions:
(1) A job-sharing arrangement shall meet all the requirements relating to posting, qualifications and seniority, as provided for
in article four, chapter eighteen-a of this code;
(2) Notwithstanding any provisions of this code or legislative
rule and specifically the provisions of article sixteen, chapter
five of this code to the contrary, a county board which enters into
a job-sharing arrangement in which two or more employees
voluntarily share an authorized full-time position shall provide
the mutually agreed upon employee coverage but shall not offer
insurance coverage to more than one of the job-sharing employees,
including any group plan or group plans available under the State
Public Employees Insurance Act;
(3) Each job-sharing agreement shall be in writing on a form
prescribed and furnished by the county board. The agreement shall
designate specifically one employee only who is entitled to the
insurance coverage. Any employee who is not so designated is not
eligible for State Public Employees Insurance Coverage regardless
of the number of hours he or she works;
(4) All employees involved in the job-sharing agreement meet
the requirements of subdivision (3), section two, article sixteen,
chapter five of this code; and
(5) When entering into a job-sharing agreement, the county
board and the employees involved in the job-sharing agreement shall
consider issues such as retirement benefits, termination of the
job-sharing agreement and any other issue the parties to the agreement consider appropriate. Any provision in the agreement
relating to retirement benefits shall not cause any cost to be
incurred by the retirement system that is more than the cost that
would be incurred if a single employee were filling the position;
and
(u) Disburse any surplus funds to teachers and service
personnel to supplement salaries paid: Provided, That any surplus
so expended shall be disbursed in equal amounts.
"Quasipublic funds" as used in this section means any money
received by any principal, teacher, student or other person for the
benefit of the school system as a result of curricular or
noncurricular activities.
Each county board shall expend under rules it establishes for
each child an amount not to exceed the proportion of all school
funds of the district that each child would be entitled to receive
if all the funds were distributed equally among all the children of
school age in the district upon a per capita basis.
NOTE: The purpose of this bill is to provide that county
boards of education shall disburse any surplus funds to supplement
the salaries of teachers and service personnel equally.
Strike-throughs indicate language that would be stricken from
the present law, and underscoring indicates new language that would
be added.
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