By JOEL PHELPS | arkadelphian.com
When students and teachers start the upcoming semester at Arkadelphia’s new Peake Elementary School, they’ll be sitting pretty as the district is purchasing a furniture package valued at $625,850.
The Arkadelphia Board of Education on Tuesday gave its unanimous acceptance of a bid from LM Office Furniture of Little Rock to equip the new school.
RELATED: School board approves $26M budget for new Peake campus
In a similar but separate move, the school board OK’d a $21,500 bid from a local company for moving services to the new campus. The Arkadelphia-based Iron Eagle Moving Co. was awarded the bid to move boxes and furniture from the current Peake (old Goza) to the new Peake and/or Goza Middle School campus, and from Perritt Primary School to the new Peake campus.
Referring to the bid for new furniture, Superintendent Nikki Thomas told the board that LM provided the lowest of five bids; another came in at over $700,000, and others did not meet specifications.
Board member Kenneth Harris Jr. inquired about the $56,000 tax charge on the overall bill, asking whether the district is exempt from paying taxes on such purchases; Thomas said the district was not exempt from taxes on furniture purchases — only construction.
Thomas said funding for the furniture will come from ESSER, Title I funding and possibly grants.
Asked by Harris what will come of the bulk of existing furniture at the old campuses, Thomas said the district will bid them out on GovDeals, a government surplus auction website.
At Harris’s motion and a second from Ida Tramble, the motion to purchase the furniture passed.
The moving bid was also among five bids offered during a recent request for proposal. Of those, only two met conditions spelled out in the RFP, and Iron Eagle — one of those two — provided the lower bid. Iron Eagle is owned by local lawman Leon Johnson. School board president Blake Bell said the AHS alumnus had moved office furniture for Bell’s financial advisement firm, and that he was pleased with Johnson’s services.
Personnel report
Announcing publicly that personnel matters and Thomas’s contract would be discussed, the school board convened in executive session for an hour and 10 minutes before reconvening in public.
Thomas’s contract was not mentioned in public following the executive session.
The school board gave its unanimous approval to the following personnel recommendations:
Employment
Certified
Christopher Golston, school counselor, Peake
Emma Kelley, junior high girls basketball coach, Goza
Kanessia Hall, middle school English teacher, Goza
Leah Clark, elementary assistant principal, Peake
Resignation
Certified
Samantha Hardage, chemistry teacher, AHS
Classified
Katherine McClure, bus driver
Cathy Brooks, bookkeeper/secretary, Goza
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