Galion BOE discusses levy, bleachers

Matt Echel­berry — Staff

Interim Trea­surer Jeri S. Wires records the min­utes for the July 30 Board of Edu­ca­tion meet­ing. (Inquirer photo/Matt Echelberry)

By Matt Echelberry

Inquirer Reporter

At the Galion Board of Education’s July 30 meet­ing, it dis­cussed the bleacher replace­ment project and the tax levy for the dis­trict. Before it went into reg­u­lar busi­ness, how­ever, it lis­tened to a pre­sen­ta­tion from Kevin McEl­lig­ott of the Cross Coun­try Par­ents’ Club.

McEl­lig­ott pro­posed changes to the 2012 Cross Coun­try Fes­ti­val at Amman’s Reser­voir in Sep­tem­ber. He said the Club will be work­ing with Pizza Hut to pro­vide con­ces­sions dur­ing the event. Because the event has grown so much, he said it is becom­ing too dif­fi­cult for the par­ents alone to han­dle con­ces­sions in addi­tion to help­ing run the meet.

The Club will sup­ply the typ­i­cal menu that it has in passed years, which con­tains healthy food options, but Pizza Hut will have a con­ces­sion trailer as well serv­ing pizza, salad and other items. McEl­lig­ott empha­sized that he has worked with the com­pany to keep the food options as healthy as pos­si­ble and it will be pro­vid­ing a cash reg­is­ter sys­tem that will make things run more smoothly.

Board Pres­i­dent Den­nis Long requested that an agree­ment be writ­ten up that could be signed by the Board and Pizza Hut representatives.

The Board approved Terry Day as Trea­surer for the dis­trict through July 31, 2014.

Super­in­ten­dent Kathy Jen­ney said, “The board spent a large amount of energy and effort con­duct­ing the inter­views for the new Trea­surer. They made an excel­lent choice.”

In her rec­om­men­da­tions, Jen­ney asked the Board to approve Ed Rich as assis­tant prin­ci­ple of the mid­dle school. Con­se­quently, it would then need to accept Rich’s res­ig­na­tion from his cur­rent posi­tion as Stu­dent Sup­port Ser­vices Spe­cial­ist. Both actions were approved, but Long asked if an exit inter­view needed to be conducted.

Jen­ney said that there is not cur­rently any require­ment for exit inter­views and no set struc­ture for how to con­duct them. Long felt that some­thing more con­crete needed to be imple­mented in order to be consistent.

Jamie Maguire, Gina Red­man and Todd Ros­ton were approved as inter­ven­tion spe­cial­ists for the 2012–13 school year and Ron Cirata will be the Aux­il­lary Ser­vice Pro­gram Enrich­ment Tutor for K-4 stu­dents at St. Joseph School.

Another item of busi­ness was to adver­tise for bids for the replace­ment of the vis­i­tor side bleach­ers at Heise Park Sta­dium. Jen­ney explained that she has met with sev­eral peo­ple to dis­cuss how to han­dle the project. She said that some of it could be paid for via the Con­struc­tion Fund, rec­om­mend­ing that the dis­trict first con­tact local com­pa­nies to remove the exist­ing bleach­ers and lay a con­crete pad.

The dis­trict could then work with the City of Galion to put in portable bleach­ers from baseball/softball fields and local parks to be used tem­porar­ily (for the first half of the foot­ball sea­son) until the Board can approve a bid and the new bleach­ers can be installed.

Board mem­bers were con­cerned that there might not be enough seat­ing using the portable bleach­ers in lieu of the cur­rent vis­i­tor side bleach­ers, which have a width of 144 feet. “We need the capac­ity to seat peo­ple, but safety is also an issue,” Long stated. The Board believed that the exist­ing bleach­ers would be too unsafe to use, espe­cially if they are full dur­ing foot­ball games.

They asked Jen­ney to check how many portable bleach­ers the dis­trict would be able to use for the first half of the sea­son before it made a final deci­sion. How­ever, they all agreed that a bid needs to be accepted as soon as possible.

Sport Safe Test­ing Ser­vice, Inc. will be pro­vid­ing ran­dom drug test­ing at the dis­trict this year for extra-curricular stu­dents. Ser­vices are not to exceed $10,000. An agree­ment with Cisco SMART­net Main­tance was approved at a cost of $25,057.

That evening, the Board was pre­sented with two drafts for the addi­tional tax levy to be put on the bal­lot in the Novem­ber elec­tion. One split the mill­age, des­ig­nat­ing 6 mills for cur­rent expenses and 2 mills for per­ma­nent improve­ments. The other des­ig­nated all 8 mills toward cur­rent expenses.

Jen­ney explained that per­ma­nent improve­ments can per­tain to a wide range of projects, includ­ing every­thing from tech­nol­ogy to pur­chas­ing new buses. “No levies [for Galion City Schools] have ever been passed that have per­ma­nent improve­ments included,” she added.

The Board felt that the first option was more appro­pri­ate because of that, and approved the first option for the levy res­o­lu­tion (see box).

***

RESOLUTION — THE BOARD OF EDUCATION OF THE GALION CITY SCHOOL DISTRICT OF CRAWFORD, MORROW, AND RICHLAND COUNTIES, OHIO, DETERMINING TO SUBMIT THE LECTORS OF SAID SCHOOL DISTRICT THE QUESTION OF LEVING ADDITIONAL TAX FOR THE COMBINED PURPOSES OF CURRENT OPERATING EXPENSES AND PERMANENT IMPROVEMENTS PURSUANT TO SECTION 5705.217 REVISED CODE OF OHIO.

THE BOARD OF EDUCATION OF THE GALION CITY SCHOOL DISTRICT OF CRAWFORD, MORROW, AND RICHLAND COUNTIES MET IN SPECIAL SESSION ON JULY 30, 2012

WHEREAS, on July 19, 2012, pur­suant to the require­ments of R.C. 5705.03(B), this Board adopted a res­o­lu­tion to cer­tify to the Audi­tor of Craw­ford County, Ohio, a request that she cer­tify to this Board the cur­rent tax val­u­a­tion of this school dis­trict and the dol­lar amount of rev­enue that would be raised by the levy of an addi­tional tax of eight (8) mills for cur­rent expenses and ongo­ing per­ma­nent improve­ments, and

WHEREAS, on July 20, 2012, said Audi­tor cer­ti­fied to this Board that the total cur­rent tax val­u­a­tion of this dis­trict is $176,993,770.00 and that the levy of eight (8) mills for cur­rent expenses and ongo­ing per­ma­nent improve­ments will gen­er­ate $1,415,950.00 in rev­enue per year.

NOW, THEREFORE, BE IT RESOLVED by the Board of Edu­ca­tion of the Galion City School Dis­trict two-thirds (2/3) of all its mem­bers concurring:

THAT this Board hereby finds and deter­mines that the amount of taxes which may be raised within the ten mill lim­i­ta­tion by levies on the cur­rent tax dupli­cate will be insuf­fi­cient to pro­vide an ade­quate amount to pro­vide for the present and future require­ments of this school district.

THAT it is nec­es­sary to levy an addi­tional tax in excess of the ten mill lim­i­ta­tion pur­suant to Sec­tion 5705.217, Revised Code of Ohio, for the pur­pose of the CURRENT EXPENSES AND ONGOING PERMANENT IMPROVEMENTS of the school dis­trict at a rate not exceed­ing eight (8) mills for each one dol­lar of val­u­a­tion which amounts to Eighty Cents ($.80) for each one hun­dred dol­lars of val­u­a­tion for a five year period of time begin­ning with the cur­rent tax year 2012 and includ­ing 2013, 2014, 2015 and 2016.

THAT the tax levied under para­graph 2 of this Res­o­lu­tion shall be appor­tioned as follows:

Six (6) mills for cur­rent expenses;

Two (2) mills for ongo­ing per­ma­nent improvements.

THAT this ques­tion shall be sub­mit­ted to the elec­tors of this school dis­trict at a spe­cial elec­tion to be held on Novem­ber 6, 2012, being the same day as the Gen­eral Election.

THAT the Trea­surer of this dis­trict shall cer­tify a copy of this Res­o­lu­tion, the Res­o­lu­tion adopted July 19, 2012, and the County Auditor’s Cer­tifi­cate issued pur­suant thereto to the Board of Elec­tions of Craw­ford County, Ohio, imme­di­ately after its pas­sage, and request that said Board pre­pare the bal­lots and make such other arrange­ments as are nec­es­sary for the sub­mis­sion of this ques­tion to the elec­tors of this dis­trict all in accor­dance with law.

THAT said levy be placed upon the tax list of the cur­rent year 2012 and there­after, if a major­ity of the elec­tors vot­ing thereon vote in favor thereof.

THAT the form of bal­lot to be used in said elec­tion shall be sub­stan­tially as follows:

OFFICIAL QUESTIONS AND ISSUES BALLOT

PROPOSED TAX LEVY (ADDITIONAL)

GALION CITY SCHOOL DISTRICT

A major­ity affir­ma­tive vote is nec­es­sary for passage.

An addi­tional tax for the ben­e­fit of the Galion City School Dis­trict for the pur­pose of CURRENT EXPENSES AND ONGOING PERMANENT IMPROVEMENTS at a rate not exceed­ing Eight (8) mills for each one dol­lar of val­u­a­tion which amounts to Eighty Cents ($.80) for each one hun­dred dol­lars of val­u­a­tion for a five-year period of time com­menc­ing in 2012, first due in cal­en­dar year 2013.

Posted by Matt Echelberry on Jul 31 2012. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS Feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.