43
South Range School District receives citation for litigation in 2015
NORTH LIMA
South Range School District received its first audit citation in a number of years due to a lawsuit in 2015.
Treasurer Jim Phillips said the state auditor’s office is getting ready to release the 2015 audit, pending the board’s decision of whether to have an exit conference, a meeting at which board members can ask questions about the audit report.
“Every year in the last several years we have waived our right to an exit conference,” Phillips said. “The board traditionally has not had exit conferences because there’s not ever anything wrong [with the audit]. Typically districts that have a lot of those [exit conferences] have a lot of citations.”
Phillips said this year the board might have wanted to have one because the district received one citation due to the lawsuit with Richard Ferenchak.
Ferenchak originally filed an injunction in March 2015, alleging South Range violated open-meetings laws in the appointment of board member Amy White.
Ferenchak said the board made the selection of White in secret, noting her nameplate was prepared before the selection in a public meeting. Also, he said the board violated its own policy by not interviewing all candidates.
The school board members settled with Ferenchak in January, agreeing to pay a $500 statutory fine and Ferenchak’s legal fees and admit the violation.
Board members voted to waive the right to the conference, regardless of the citation.
Phillips also asked the board’s approval of a $1,081.46 purchase order for Zeigler Trophies.
In other news, Dean Pagnotta, director of maintenance and technology, said he is still looking into procuring a better wireless network for the district.
“The devices and technology coming out now support higher versions of wireless network than the infrastructure that we have put in place,” Pagnotta said. “We are looking into that, getting some bids and seeing if we can move forward with that around summer.”
Board President Ralph Wince also announced that Myers Equipment Corp., 8860 Akron-Canfield Road, Canfield, was the lowest bidder for a new 72-passenger bus, at $81,669. South Range will be trading in a 1997 bus as part of an improvement plan for the school’s transportation system.
“Our buses last around 20 years. For the last couple of years we were not financially able to update the buses. Now we are trying to get on track by replacing one bus a year,” Wince said.
Wince said he will be asking for approval of that amount soon.