School chief, farmer trade jobs for a day

Lori Glenn

March 22, 2008 11:52 pm

— MOULTRIE — Running a farm and running a school district can be more alike than one might think.
During the Agribusiness Committee of the Moultrie-Colquitt County Chamber of Commerce’s third job swap this week, there was a meeting of the minds. The program is designed to allow those from the nonagricultural sector experience a taste of what life is like on the “other side of the fence” since the farming industry is a vital component of the local economy, chamber officials said, and for farmers to walk a mile in the wingtips of office-only types.
For farmer Trey Hart of Ochlocknee Ridge Farms and Colquitt County Schools Superintendent Leonard McCoy, success is measured in yield. Hart measures it in quantities of strawberries, wheat, cotton, peanuts and cattle. For McCoy, it’s in test scores and number of graduates.
McCoy pulled on muck boots and a windbreaker for the blustery day. A blunt-nosed bulldog snuffled around the men’s feet. The morning was crisp. The wheat was green and the strawberries an enticing deep red.
Not a stranger to farming — he grew up on a farm in Kentucky — McCoy was happy to pick a few berries at Hart’s U-pick operation and hoist plats while learning Hart’s take on the agriculture industry in these trying times of $100-a-barrel oil.
Hart explained how labor, fuel and fertilizer are his highest costs. Expensive oil is forcing Hart and farmers like him to move toward relatively less expensive organic fertilizers, he said. That’s flipped. Until recently, organic fertilizers were more expensive than synthetic.
Fuel and fertilizer also dictate what row crops Hart considers planting. For instance, he experimented with wheat for the first time this year attracted by its healthy market value versus inputs.
Hart changed into dress clothes for the occasion of taking up the mantel of school superintendent but didn’t quite manage McCoy’s ubiquitous tie.
Hart isn’t a stranger to the school system any more than McCoy is to the fields. His mother built a long, fruitful career as food services director for Colquitt County Schools. She’s since retired and is now helping with the family business. Also, Hart sells strawberries fresh to the school system and opens his enterprise to thousands of school children each year through regional field trips.
“That’s one of the benefits of my product. I know it’s not going to the store to sit on the shelf five to seven days. I’d have to pick a green berry to do that. I can pick red berry which has a lot more sugar, and I can serve it to a kid fresh,” he said.
The two discussed parallels between the farm and running a school district. Both are “driven by the laws of supply and demand and cost,” McCoy said, but the school district is also blown by the shifting wind of politics, which dictate how much money flows in from the state and local levels. That’s an unknown that takes away some of the decision-making process, the superintendent said.
Fixed costs at the school system are about 92 percent, with 82 percent going to personnel, he said.
“What’s actually left to make decisions on is relatively small, and that’s where you spend much of your time trying to make good decisions on what you’re going to do and you have to be extremely careful not to establish recurring costs,” he said.
For instance, McCoy said, construction of a new field house at the football field costs $1.2 million. The school district could hire 20 teachers for the same amount, but every year after would cost the district $1.2 million and up. The field house would incur only maintenance expenses, he said.
In 2000, Colquitt County Schools’ ending year balance was $2.2 million. Last year, the balance was $7 million, he said, thanks in part to good planning.
And in part to increased equalization funds to the poorest districts, of which Colquitt County is one. The local economy’s health in recent years also has contributed to the bottom line.
“We went through a 12-months time frame a couple of years ago where our 1-cent sales tax receipts increased 17 percent,” he said.
With that momentum, McCoy would like to grow a cushion of $10 million to ensure the school system could sustain bad times.
Hart likened that to a high horsepower tractor blowing an engine in the middle of a season.
Hart listened intently to the details of a proposal to motivate the younger students to strive toward graduation. He offered input into a project in which high school students produce a video of interviews with former Colquitt County students who were the first in their families to graduate high school.
Later, he edited the system newsletter, reviewed disciplinary hearing policy and inspected the bus shop.

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