You can tell it's summer time by how few people attended our board meeting. I think besides staff there were only three others that attended the whole meeting. I hope more than that take the time to read my blog.
It was a very short meeting, but I have some follow-up information from our last meeting that I will include also. One of the first things we did was approve the resignation of Joe Rodriguez, the IT guy. He is going to Grangeville. He will be hard to replace. We also approved the FCCLA to go on their national competition to Orlando.
Julie Cederberg, the district secretary, presented the district budget for approval for next school year. She had a paper prepared with the budget outline. I won't get into all the details that I detailed in my last blog. If you haven't read it, please do, I spent a lot of time coming up with information and explaining every budget detail so all can better understand. Please encourage everyone who has an interest in our school funds to read it. The main thing that I haven't stated before is where it looks like we will end up and what is being budgeted for next year. Julie is estimating we will spend $100,000 of our last year's contingency budget. Last year we planned for a budget deficit of $232,000, so we will do much better than we planned. A couple reasons it is better is how well our budget has been managed by our Administrators and we had been told there might be another hold back of funds last year that didn't happen. It's always good to plan for the worst and have things turn out better. We will have more exact budget details of our last year's budget after our audit in August.
The budget for next year is very close to the same. We approved spending another $100,000 out of our contingency fund for next year, leaving at the end of next year about $600,000 in the contingency. One cost increase is a 3% increase in insurance, which I think is smaller than expected. The main reason we are able to cover the increased insurance cost is because a teacher left from the elementary and we chose not to replace her. As I explained in my last blog the state has plans to restore more funds back to the Maintenance and Operation's fund, if the economy improves enough. But I think we will all believe it when we see it. One fact you might find interesting. Our budget has dropped $746,000 since the 2009-2010 school year. It's amazing we still have a contingency fund balance.
I then reported on the last committee meeting. Basically we had talk about the district budget and I referred everyone to read my blog to get a detailed explanation. We will not have a committee meeting this month.
I emailed Mr. Tubbs some follow-up questions from our last board meeting a couple days before the board meeting, that I thought needed discussed, he then replied in an email back to the board the answers. None of this was on the agenda for discussion. I asked more questions at the meeting to again follow-up from the answers he provided.
I had asked if they had a chance to look at the drug use, cell phone, and dress policies. He said the management team has met twice to look at all three policies, but hasn't had time to get a committee together to review them. They plan on having recommendations back to us by fall. If anyone has ideas of how these should be changed let Mr. Tubbs know, he is very open to suggestions. I told him last night, whatever they come up with needs to be better enforced and uniformly enforced.
I asked if we are getting lined up for the Common Core Standards. He said yes that several staff members have had training concerning the common core. They are looking at the curriculum to see what we need to do when purchasing new curriculum for next year to cover any gaps.
I asked about Pay for Performance in the email and at board meeting. The administration is working with the teachers to figure out if our plan needs changed from the state plan we followed this past year. Mr. Tubbs plans to go over this at our August meeting. He asked for suggestions from us if we had any. Last night I made the suggestion that we reward someone, if they would take an aggressive role in writing grants. I think we could get more grants if this happened. I also suggested if possible for the teachers that are volunteering so much time for free, coaching and running other extra curricular activities, to get a little extra. I think there is still a lot to do before this issue is finalized for next year.
I asked about the technology. Basically we will watch and see how this works out for the other districts that are starting this program for this next school year, to help guide us in what we do later on.
I asked if we have received grants for the bleachers. He said not yet, but are still working on getting two of them. I asked if we are working on grants for other things. He said yes Keith Drake received a grant for a cooler to use in his class room. As I said before we need to have someone more involved with writing grants.
April and I are going to a regional board training in August at Rigby. I think it will be a good program. I wish the whole board was able to go. I will report on it after we attend. We also qualify for some free training that we might do after attending the regional training and can decide what we might like to learn.
I asked if we knew the results of the ISAT tests yet. The state has had some computer problems so the results are not out yet, but will be soon.
I also asked about the attendance issues with the state to find out if the problem was resolved yet. He thinks it should be, but is still waiting for more information.
I asked at our meeting last night if they had decided what repairs and maintenance to do. Mr. Tubbs gave me a list of all the projects and the cost breakdown, I won't list them all here, but there is a lot to do. A lot of painting projects. The total student occupied fund spending if everything is done adds up to $142,000. $120,000 of this is the new bleachers. Which by the way we were give a drawing of them, and they will look very nice. They will be mostly blue, with black and white seats spelling out on the upper side Firth and on the lower side Cougars. The projected expense for non student occupied is $17,700. A big part of this is for the berm work at the middle school and some asphalt repairs at the elementary and high school, and some repairs around the baseball field.
We approved a policy update regarding the evaluation of certificated personnel.
I have a feeling like I left something out, but can't think of what it might be. This blog starts the second year of me writing a blog about board meetings. Overall I think this is the 38th blog I have written. I hope many feel it is worth the read. It provides me with a journal of what happend in the past that I can go back and refer to. I will be with my wife and daughter in Orlando at the FCCLA competition during next month meeting. So if you want to know whats going on you will just have to go to the meeting and find out. I don't like missing meetings, but I need to support my daughter. Without me there the meeting will probably go a lot faster. I was kidding my wife with giving the committee report and all the other comments and questions I seem to almost always come up with. That they need to put an item on the agenda just for me to ask my questions and provide comments. I think July is when the board leadership is voted on. I hope you all have a good summer. As always if you have comments or questions let me know. I wish someone could write a blog about next months meeting so I could find out the details of what happens. Thanks, Brian
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