District to request levy again

By Matt Echelberry

Inquirer Reporter

The Galion Board of Edu­ca­tion decided to return to the vot­ers with another tax levy this May. Dur­ing its Jan. 24 spe­cial meet­ing, the Board approved a res­o­lu­tion to place a 9.4-mil levy on the May 7 ballot.

Trea­surer Terri Day told Board mem­bers that there were three options to choose from: 1) all funds go into cur­rent expenses, 2) a split milage of 8 mils for cur­rent expenses and 1.4 mils for per­ma­nent improve­ments, or 3) a split milage of 7.4 mils for cur­rent expenses and 2 mils for per­ma­nent improvements.

Day noted that it is “imper­a­tive” for the dis­trict to pass a levy. She showed the Five Year Finan­cial Fore­cast, which indi­cated deficits through 2015 and then rec­om­mended Option 2 for a 8/1.4 split milage levy. If vot­ers pass it, 8 mils will bring in an esti­mated $1.49 mil­lion per year and 1.4 mils an esti­mated $223,068 per year. No col­lec­tion would be made in 2013.

Board mem­ber George McEl­lig­ott asked if it was pos­si­ble to lower the milage from the 9.4 total.

“I know any amount is a lot for peo­ple to pay, but there have already been major cuts in the dis­trict and will look to con­tinue mak­ing cuts,” Day responded. She noted that cuts will need to be made regard­less of if the levy passes. The 9.4 milage would bring back what the 8-mil levy on the bal­lot last Novem­ber would have brought in before the new prop­erty valuations.

Super­in­ten­dent Kathy Jen­ney com­mented that rev­enue from the levy will allow the dis­trict to sim­ply keep what it cur­rently has, no pro­grams would be added.

Board mem­ber Robert Zeisler felt it was impor­tant to set aside some funds for per­ma­nent improve­ments, and asked what the funds would be used for.

Jen­ney said money for the per­ma­nent improve­ment account MUST remain in that account and can be used only for spe­cific pur­poses, such as con­tin­u­ing the One-to-One Tech­nol­ogy Pro­gram, bus replace­ments as needed and improve­ments to facilities.

The Board passed Option 2 unanimously.

Dur­ing com­mu­nity input Ken Bod­kins, a mem­ber of Galion City Coun­cil and chair for the Parks and Recre­ation Com­mit­tee, addressed the Board. He said he is hav­ing trou­ble facil­i­tat­ing use of the base­ball fields for the “Babe Ruth League” this sum­mer. The league was told last year the base­ball field at Heise Park could not be used and he was not sure why.

Bod­kins wanted to work some­thing out with the school admin­is­tra­tion to allow use of the field with cer­tain con­di­tions, such as the league being respon­si­ble for clean­ing the area after each game.

Jen­ney asked Bod­kins to instruct a rep­re­sen­ta­tive of the league to con­tact her. She said she was will­ing to work some­thing out with the league.

In superintendent’s rec­om­men­da­tions, Jen­ney requested accept­ing the retire­ment res­ig­na­tion of Nancy Wid­man, Inter­ven­tion Spe­cial­ist at Galion High School, effec­tive March 1, 2013, and, con­se­quently, the employ­ment of Thomas C. Wig­gins as Mid­dle School Inter­ven­tion Spe­cial­ist, effec­tive Jan­u­ary 22, 2013 for the 2012–2013 school year.

She also asked for approval of Caden Lutz as assis­tant swim­ming coach and Krista McK­ibben to be paid $1800 for teach­ing two dual enroll­ment full-year classes (Advanced Math and Cal­cu­lus) in coop­er­a­tion with North Cen­tral State College.

Also on the agenda was approval of Lucinda Glew and Kyle Baughn as home instruc­tion tutors for the 2012–2013 school year. Accord­ing to Jen­ney, this brings the total num­ber of tutors in the dis­trict to about 20, depend­ing on stu­dent need. She asked for approval for train­ing and pay­ment of tutors for Grade 8 and 9 stu­dents in the AVID Pro­gram. The tutors are: Eric Neal, Mau­reen Neal, Patti Miller, Becky Gehrisch and Sheryl Bowen.

Lastly, Jen­ney rec­om­mended the employ­ment of Rod­ney A. Dean as Mid­dle School night cus­to­dian, effec­tive Feb­ru­ary 11, 2013, and Stacy Cameron as a sub­sti­tute secretary.

The Board approved all rec­om­men­da­tions that evening.

The Board also approved two mem­o­ran­dums of under­stand­ing, one with the Galion Edu­ca­tion Asso­ci­a­tion and the other with the Ohio Asso­ci­a­tion of Pub­lic Employ­ees Local #370, effec­tive Feb. 1. Both agree­ments reflected a revi­sion to the district’s vision insur­ance plan; the dis­trict cov­ers 90 per­cent of the pre­mium while the mem­ber will pay 10 percent.

As dis­cussed dur­ing the Jan. 10 Board meet­ing, Jen­ney pre­sented mem­bers with details on pur­chas­ing a portable refu­eler sta­tion for diesel fuel. She said they are look­ing to TRM Sup­port for the agree­ment and the total cost would be $24,500, includ­ing set up, mon­i­tor­ing of fuel price and deliv­ery, and monthly billing for fuel costs.

Admin­is­tra­tion is con­sid­er­ing its own fuel tank due to the increas­ing costs of pay­ing full retail price for fuel, includ­ing sales tax, for the 18 buses cur­rently in the district’s fleet. Accord­ing to Jen­ney, in Jan­u­ary of 2011, the dis­trict paid an aver­age of $2.87 per gal­lon, and in Jan­u­ary of 2012 it paid an aver­age of $3.48 per gal­lon. With its own tank, they will pay an aver­age of $3.28–3.50 per month.

The Board con­sid­ered leas­ing the tank instead, but the cost could poten­tially exceed $24,500 for the life of the lease. Mem­bers agreed that pur­chas­ing a tank was the best option. Jen­ney will final­ize details and bring back a for­mal agree­ment for the Feb­ru­ary meeting.

The two work ses­sion top­ics for the evening were goal set­ting and pol­icy revi­sions. The first topic had a lengthy dis­cus­sion, which was in a brain­storm­ing phase. Among some of the Board’s con­tin­ued goals, sta­dium improve­ments, safety plan­ning and cor­rect­ing an aging bus fleet were priorities.

In addi­tion, the cam­pus build­ings use com­pres­sor units for the heat­ing and cool­ing sys­tem. Build­ings and Grounds Super­vi­sor Joe Tucker reported that of the 240 units on the cam­pus, four were down and need to be replaced. Cost is around $2,500 for one unit, which have a 7–10 year lifes­pan. Tucker was wor­ried that many more units will need to be replaced in the com­ing years.

In terms of cur­ricu­lum, col­lege and career readi­ness remains a pri­or­ity. McEl­lig­ott asked Sandy Pow­ell, direc­tor of cur­ricu­lum, if the “career” aspect of the prepa­ra­tion could be given more focus, as col­lege and tech­ni­cal school­ing is a part of a student’s career path.

There are numer­ous other cur­ricu­lum goals, includ­ing: con­tin­u­ing to pro­vide elec­tives and other options for stu­dents, dig­i­tal course­work, class sched­ul­ing and tech­nol­ogy infrastructure/instruction.

Board Vice Pres­i­dent Jen­nifer Kuns rec­om­mended adding to cur­ricu­lum goals the imple­men­ta­tion of a stu­dent suc­cess cen­ter, as opposed to tra­di­tional study halls.

Board mem­bers also looked toward mar­ket­ing goals, ques­tion­ing whether money should be bud­geted toward mar­ket­ing and which means should be used, such as bill­boards. They also have an inter­est in updat­ing the school website.

Trea­surer Day added expressed inter­est in incor­po­rat­ing a blog of some sort to the site, as well as hold­ing reg­u­lar com­mu­nity meet­ings for par­ents and res­i­dents to get together with admin­is­tra­tors to talk infor­mally and ask questions.

The Board agreed that com­mu­nity out­reach and engage­ment is a must, and hopes to remain account­able and transparent.

Two pol­icy revi­sions were later reviewed. The first was cam­pus wear guide­lines, to make reg­u­la­tions slightly less strict. The sec­ond was for the Build­ing Use Agree­ment, in order to stream­line it.

Board mem­ber Brian Owens also sug­gested that the 13-page doc­u­ment be con­densed to make it “more con­ve­nient and wel­com­ing” for peo­ple to use the cam­pus buildings.

Fur­ther dis­cus­sion on the revi­sions will be held dur­ing the Feb­ru­ary meet­ing, which is Feb. 20 at 6:30 p.m., in the Mid­dle School com­puter lab.

Posted by Matt Echelberry on Jan 25 2013. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS Feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.