The Sumter County Board of Education wrangled with two issues at its regular monthly meeting Thursday night.

The first issue was who was going to pay for the school district delegation to fly to Konu, Japan, Americus’ sister city, in the spring. The Japanese delegations visited Americus back in August.

The matter of who was going was decided and the matter was taken for a vote, and the motion passed 6-1.

“We need to decide who’s going to pick up the bill,” said Board member Michael Busman. Chairman Mark Waddell asked if the finance committee could discuss it at its next meeting.

“If people are going, this needs to be decided sooner or later,” said Board member Donna Minich. She said that doing things like making reservations and getting passports “take time.”

“We’ll have to come back and make recommendations,” said Board member Carolyn Whitehead on the matter.

Waddell recommended the finance committee discuss the matter and urged everyone going to go ahead and get their passports.

Then, the second issue had to do with procedures on filling the vacant District 4 seat, that was once occupied by Farrell Wilson.

Board member Edith Ann Green asked if the procedures have been approved.

Waddell said an advertisement to fill the vacancy, as dictated by the procedure, would begin running in this Sunday’s legal organ. He said the deadline for taking applications would be Oct. 23, and he added the BOE would need to meet on Oct. 25 to do interviews and review applications to make a decision as to who would fill Wilson’s vacant seat.

Edith Ann Green asked if it had been dictated at last Monday’s work session that the minutes reflect the dates decided upon by the Board. Waddell said no, and she made the motion to get that done. The motion passed.

Waddell later clarified that the procedure gave a certain number of days to gather applications, but the specific dates were not included in the policy.

In other matters, the BOE accepted all resignations, a termination, new hires except for Tawnya Hadley as a long-term substitute teacher, those on Family Medical Leave and two salary increases for personnel. A second motion was made to approve Hadley, and motion passed.

Also, the Board approved a policy defining a year’s experience for uncertified staff, and the policy dictates that 120 days will constitute a year’s experience.