Two weeks after the Jefferson County Board of Education narrowly approved a series of major cutbacks in spending, with a resulting net loss of 162 jobs, its members may be looking for a do-over of sorts.

In their regular monthly committee meetings on Tuesday morning, the board agreed to form a task force that will look over the cuts and examine any other cost-cutting measures that might mitigate the loss of jobs.

The agreement came after representatives from two employee associations — the Alabama Education Association and the Jefferson County local of the American Federation of Teachers — jointly presented a plan in response to a request by Supt. Dr. Craig Pouncey.

The associations’ plan called for the reduction in force to be rescinded, for a committee to be formed representing all stakeholders in the system (including parents), and for an outside firm to perform an independent audit of the system’s finances and financial projections.

The AFT had originally gone a step further, demanding that the system’s chief school financial officer be dismissed, but that demand didn’t make it into the joint proposal.

The associations didn’t get everything they wanted, but they will have seats at the table when the task force convenes.

Board member Dr. Martha Bouyer said she had met with AEA and AFT officials on March 29 to hear their concerns about the cuts. That prompted her to attempt to have Pouncey’s planned cuts put off during Tuesday’s meeting. A JefCoEd attorney said that was out of order for a committee meeting, so Bouyer agreed to the task force instead.

AFT representative Sheila Jones (not to be confused with the JefCoEd chief financial officer by the same name) was very pleased with the task force formation.

“Wow, I’m excited — I would have never dreamed they would form a task force at a committee meeting. I’ve never heard of that happening,” Jones said.

Her AEA counterpart, Sue Duke, was also happy.

“I’m very pleased that we’re finally going to be brought to the table and discuss this,” Duke said. “Hopefully we’ll review this, and make a decision much brighter than the one we were facing.”

Pouncey took the move in stride, though he was still firm in his belief that the plan that was passed is the best path forward, given that the state legislature’s proposed finding for K-12 schools sees little or no increase from last year.

“Certainly if someone else has a better option that gives us the same financial impact, I have a duty as a superintendent to entertain that, and possibly propose that for action by the board,” he said.

Board President Dean Taylor said that the board would put together a slate of system stakeholders, including parents, to be a part of a force that should number 12 to 15 people. The board will vote on the membership at its meeting on April 23.