Stephens BOE Raises Prices at the Cannery

Prices will be higher this summer for people who take their garden produce to the Stephens County Cannery to be canned and preserved.

Members of the Stephens County School Board recently voted to raise prices after a months long debate on the issue.

In January, Stephens County School Superintendent Bryan Dorsey announced he was cutting back the cannery’s hours of operation to eight hours a day, four days a week as a cost-saving measure.  Still, the cannery continues to run a deficit.

School officials told the school board that if no changes were made to prices and everything stayed the same with sales and costs, the cannery is on pace to lose $45,000 this year.

However, if prices are raised to double today’s rate, that deficit would only amount to about $7,000.  Dorsey says staff is looking for final direction from the school board.

Board member Dr. Elizabeth Pinkerton says doubling prices appears to be the best option right now.

“It looks like that is what we are going to have to do to continue to operate it,” she said.

Meanwhile, school board member Jim Bellamy says he feels they still need to reach out to retired high school agriculture teacher Ferman Gregory in an effort to make the cannery work.

“He is a guru,” said Bellamy. “Why do we not ask him to act as a consultant in helping us get this thing in the black? I believe he is the one man in the county who can.”

Over the past weeks, there have been a number of talks with different groups about taking over the cannery, but Dorsey says nobody has shown enough interest to continue pursuing it.

“We talked to the county and once they saw our numbers for the cannery, they decided they were no longer interested and the few people that have called us, once they see the hard numbers they are no longer interested in privatizing it,” said Dorsey.

After more discussion at their work session last week, board members voted unanimously to both double prices and ask Gregory if he would look at the cannery’s operations with the school board.