Last week, members of the Jefferson County Board of Education agreed to appoint a task force to look at the school system’s finances, in the wake of major job reductions and other cuts proposed by Supt. Dr. Craig Pouncey.

In today’s regular monthly meeting, the board announced five of the seven members to serve on the board, as well as the date that it would start its work.

The members announced so far are:

• Mike Miles, the treasurer of Jefferson County government, who will serve as the chairman of the task force
• Tracee Binion, Uniserv Director for the Alabama Education Association, whose territory includes Jefferson County Schools
• Marrianne Hayward, President of the Jefferson County local of the American Federation of Teachers
• Lee Varnes, who serves as a municipal judge in several metro Birmingham cities and a public defender in others, including Hoover
• Charles Winston (no information available)

The two remaining appointees had yet to confirm their acceptance, Board President Dean Taylor said, adding that he would announce their names when they do confirm.

Each of the five board members nominated one member to the task force, with the other two spots filled by leaders of the two major employee organizations.

Taylor said that the force will hold its first meeting on April 30, at a place to be determined outside of the JefCoEd Central Office.

The force’s primary job is to take a closer look at the system’s finances, and to see if any better alternatives are available to the cutbacks made in Pouncey’s financial improvement plan, which was narrowly approved by a 3-2 vote in the board’s previous regular meeting. That plan calls for a net loss of more than 160 jobs throughout the system, among other cuts.

In other action Thursday, the board approved the retirement of Deputy Supt. of Operations Dr. Yancy Morris, who will step down after 42 years of service in public education, both in Georgia and Alabama. Morris took his current position with JefCoEd in 1997.