Board hears report on school finance

By Brad Lowell

USD 333 superintendent Bev Mortimer painted a gloomy picture for the future of state aid to public schools at last night's board of education meeting.
Mortimer said that most of the plans being suggested by legislators appointed to a special committee to study school finance are recommending that a freeze be placed on the per pupil state aid and that more and more of the burden be pushed back on the local property tax.
For example there would be a shortage of $5 million in the funding for the USD 333 general fund budget if the full burden for financing public education was pushed back to local districts, Mortimer said. “We would be forced to raise the property tax 458 percent to fully fund the general fund budget,” she said.
Some equalization formula needs to be in place because of the great disparity in the average assessed value of homes in Kansas ranges from a low of $23,000 to a high of $410,000, Mortimer said. USD 333 with an average assessed value of  $55,000 ranks 227 out of 292 school districts in the state, she said.
Also, when the federal stimulus money goes away next year, the district will lose another $300 per student, Mortimer said.  
There was a time when educators went to work every day and all they had to worry about was what was best for the students, Mortimer said. Now we are in a fight for survival, she said. “I've always had answers in the past and I'll find enough small solutions in the future to do what is best for kids,” she said.
Mortimer is on a Kansas Association of School Boards committee to study how to improve the school finance system.
The board passed a resolution extending authorization for the eight mill capital outlay level for another five years. Under the provisions of the resolution, the board can levy a maximum of eight mills.
The capital outlay levy is subject to a protest petition filed within 40 days of publication of the authorizing resolution signed by 10 percent of the qualified voters living in the district. If a valid petition is filed, a special election will be called or there will be a ballot at the next regular election on the issue.
A bid was accepted from Hale's Refuse for $240 per month to provide trash hauling services for the district. Mortimer said that the bid was nearly 50 percent less than the district was previously paying for trash hauling services.
The board gave its approval for revisions to the professional development committee manual.
An agreement was approved with the Learning Cooperative of North Central Kansas for the shared services of Leigh Griffies. Griffies will provide instructional and assistive technology support.
Mortimer said that she had returned the cooperative agreement to the Southern Cloud school district as being unacceptable because of the failure to accept the USD student eligibility and practice time requirements. Southern Cloud is seeking the agreement so a baseball player and a wrestler can participate on CHS teams.
 





 


No User Comments

Be the first to comment on this story.



Concordia
Concordia