The PK-12 North Tama County Community School District campus in Traer. The district is considering a three-person operational sharing agreement with South Tama County that would include a shared superintendent, maintenance director, and business official. South Tama's school board approved the proposal during a meeting held this past Monday in Tama. PHOTO COURTESY OF NORTH TAMA COMMUNITY SCHOOL DISTRICT

TAMA – In a move aimed at tackling a budget shortage, the South Tama County Board of Education introduced a new cost-sharing agreement with the North Tama school district during its regular board meeting on Monday, March 18.

Under the agreement, South Tama superintendent John Cain would divide his time between North Tama and South Tama districts beginning with the 2024-25 school year. The plan would be for Cain to spend 40 percent of his time at North Tama, equating to approximately two days per week.

Cain is in his second school year at South Tama after being hired to replace Jared Smith for the 2022-23 school year.

In addition to sharing a superintendent, the agreement with North Tama also proposes to share the services of South Tama’s Maintenance Director (Steve McAdoo) and Assistant Business Manager (Katie Hulin) who will focus primarily on assisting North Tama with their payroll. The time split for these two positions would be 80 percent for South Tama and 20 percent for North Tama.

The move comes as part of a South Tama budget reduction effort to address a shortfall of around $1 million as they prepare to finalize their 2024-25 budget. The sharing agreement is estimated to yield savings of just under $275,000 a year for STC.

South Tama County Community School District superintendent John Cain. TAMA-GRUNDY PUBLISHING FILE PHOTO

South Tama’s school board unanimously approved the sharing agreement Monday with minimal discussion following the announcement of the arrangement by Cain. Up until that point, it had not been made public which positions were being considered for operational sharing and to which school district the agreement would be made.

In February it was announced that North Tama’s superintendent David Hill would be leaving the district to become the next superintendent at Waverly-Shell Rock.

North Tama previously operated with a similar sharing arrangement from 2016 to 2020 when the district shared Hill with Gladbrook-Reinbeck. Since 2020, Hill’s position has been entirely with North Tama but in a 3/4 time capacity.

Cain indicated that the agreement had been discussed by North Tama’s school board and that they were generally in favor of it. The agreement will go before the North Tama board for formal approval at a special session sometime in early April.

North Tama savings

In an email sent Tuesday afternoon to the newspaper, Hill said if the operational sharing proposal is approved by the North Tama school board, no North Tama employees would lose their jobs as a result.

“The ‘other business official’ position and ‘maintenance director’ position will be new additions for North Tama,” Hill explained, “but because of state sharing incentives, our district will actually MAKE MONEY by adding these positions.”

Hill said under the proposal, North Tama would pay for 20 percent of the total salary and benefits for the two positions.

“We’ll have access to their services approximately one day per week on average,” Hill continued. “The operational sharing incentive dollars provided by the state will be GREATER THAN the dollar amount that North Tama spends on our portion of the salary and benefits, so we’ll actually be ahead financially by adding the positions.”

The shared business official, Hill said, would take over payroll processing for North Tama.

“This will reduce the workload for North Tama’s [school business official] Sarah Forrester, which is a good thing since she may have some additional duties added to her list of responsibilities with a shared superintendent.”

North Tama’s current transportation director, Joel Larsen, is set to retire on June 30 with Mike Morrison hired to replace him. Morrison’s position will not be affected by the proposed operational sharing proposal.

“The ‘maintenance director position’ will supplement our current custodial workforce. South Tama’s current maintenance director has vast experience with major facility projects and has a proven track record of identifying opportunities for efficiencies in facility maintenance and operation. This will be a real benefit to North Tama as the district embarks upon the construction of a new high school addition and other facility upgrades.”

As of presstime, a date had not yet been set for a special session of the North Tama school board to address the sharing proposal, but Hill said the district would ideally like to move on the proposal soon.

“I’ve polled the board members about their availability for the entire week next week. We’d like to get the sharing ‘locked in’ as we truly believe it will be beneficial for North Tama.”

“With the sharing incentives added in plus the sharing in the cost of all three positions, it is my best estimate that the financial boost will amount to about a million dollars for North Tama over a five-year period.”