Thursday, May 23, 2013
McDONALD
McDonald schools Treasurer Bill Johnson said the district’s finances continue to improve, especially since a 3.85-mill, five-year emergency levy to generate $200,147 a year was renewed May 7.
“I would say we are substantially stronger,” Johnson said. The passage of the levy brings more certainty, Johnson said, and made the forecast look better.
He said now the district is waiting to see if the state gives the district additional funds in its biennium budget this summer.
He said the bottom line is that this forecast is close to the forecast presented in October. “The board increased revenues and decreased spending a lot,” he said, which he said is benefiting the district’s bottom line.
The current projections in the five-year forecast are: a cash balance of $1.613 million in 2013; $2.532 million in 2014; $3.251 million in 2015; $3.839 million in 2016; and $4.211 million in 2017.
Johnson said approval of two more renewal levies are important to the district finances: a 5.1-mill, five-year emergency levy to generate $260,000 in 2014, and renewal of, in 2016, a 5.10 five-year emergency levy which generates $391,000 annually.
Johnson said if district finances continue to be solid, a capital projects strategy is being developed.
Johnson said the board is trying to put away some money to make needed capital improvements. A priority is installing new computers at both the high school and Roosevelt Elementary to meet state standards to go into effect in two years to permit online testing of all students.
Another priority is to fix a wall in the high school boiler room and a portion of the floor and do work on an electrical transformer for the high school.
He said work will be done this summer to upgrade the high school computer lab. He noted Internet speed already has been upgraded.
In other business at its meeting this week, the board hired Jessica Krumpak as director of special education under a three-year, 207 days per year contract starting Aug. 1, at $62,100 a year. This is shared service contract with Mineral Ridge, which pays half of her salary back to McDonald.
The board also rehired Mike Helco as transportation supervisor on a one-year limited contract at a cost of $46,192 a year, effective Aug. 1 to July 31, 2014. This includes an increase of 30 hours from this past year.
The board accepted a $100 donation from Andrew Golubic for the football fundraiser fund in memory of the late Bill Walker.