VALDOSTA — The Valdosta Board of Education voted not to fill the empty District 2 seat until early next year. 

The decision was made at the Nov. 13 board meeting, which comes from an earlier recommendation by a school board selection committee consisting of board members Liz Shumphard, Warren Lee, Debra Bell and Stacy Bush and Superintendent Dr. Todd Cason.

Cason said there are now six candidates who have expressed interest in filling the seat, but they will have to run in a special election taking place March 19.

“The special election has to be held March 19, and that person will have to run again in November,” Cason said. “Then it’s a six-year term.”

During a recent committee meeting, Lee said voters should decide.

“We need to stay out of it and let the people decide who they want to represent their district,” Lee said. “That would be the best and right thing to do so all candidates can run.”

District 2 is the area of Valdosta that runs from Pineview Drive, south to Old Statenville Road, and from Oak Street, east to Forrest Street with the exception of the neighborhood that includes Stillwater Drive and Brookwood Place, south to Alley Street.

The board also approved to adopt the VCS 2019-2020 budget. It isn’t officially approved, however, until it goes through a seven-month long process to discuss and fix the budget.

The District 2 seat has been vacant since Vanessa Flucas resigned due to increased responsibilities with a new job.

The finance committee meeting will approve the final draft of the 2019-20 budget in May, and the budget will run as a legal ad in The Valdosta Daily Times, before it is officially approved in June.

The beginnings of the 2019-20 budget wasn’t the only matter to come out of the finance committee meeting report.

As part of that report, Dr. Alvin Hudson, VCS superintendent, presented SPLOST collection comparisons, with the previous school year ringing in a little more than $9 million.

This is an almost $400,000 improvement of collections from the previous 2016-17 school year, Hudson said.

“FY18 was a good collection year for us,” Hudson said.

He said he suspects FY19 could result in another great collection year. Since July, the school system has collected more than $2.3 million from SPLOST averaging $782,000 a month.

“We’re hopeful this trend will continue,” Hudson said. “If we continue on this trend, we will have a very good collection.”

The board also approved two fifth-grade field trips — one to Titusville, Fla., and another to Atlanta — and it gave out monthly employee awards to Willie Price of the transportation department, Cathy Ghee of Horne Learning Center’s nutrition team and Jennifer Harris of S.L. Mason Elementary School’s custodial department.

There will not be a work session meeting this month or next month due to the holidays. The next regular board meeting will be held at the central office, 7 p.m., Dec. 11. 

Katelyn Umholtz is a reporter with the Valdosta Daily Times. She can be contacted at (229)244-3400 ext. 1256.