The Greene County School Board met last night in regular session.
The Board heard the a monthly update on the student construction program with instructor Chuck Wenthold. He said the students are continuing to help remodel the Habitat for Humanity house at 901 West Washington Street. Drywall is completed on the interior. Plans are to have the students help with the exterior of the home by putting on gutters and doing some concrete work when it warms up. The anticipated completion date is by July 1st with hopes to finish earlier in June.
The Board then approved several agenda items. They approved the 2015 spring officials list for sports, an early graduation request for Karah Butler, continuing to offer KeBecca Educational Services for the 2015-16 school year for fourth through eighth grade students and discontinuing the transitional kindergarten program. Due to new state regulations, the standards would be linked to kindergarten-aged students and since the district already has a pre-kindergarten program, the Board decided to end the TK program.
The proposed 2016 fiscal year budget was discussed. The Board decided to leave the income surtax rate at five percent and establish the Voter-Approved Physical Plant and Equipment Levy (PPEL) rate at $1.20 per $1,000 valuation. The proposed budget also considers 1.25 percent increase in supplemental state aid funding. The Board set the public hearing for the budget on April 13th at 5:15pm.
The amount of money that the blended tax levy rate would generate is $576,000. With that projected figure, the Board approved several PPEL projects for this summer. The list includes a school bus, two suburbans, new football bleachers, making repairs to the baseball field, an additional utility vehicle, fire safety work, Americans with Disabilities Act compliance at the administrative building with an automatic entry door, putting steel siding on the west exterior wall of the Wisecup Memorial Gym in Rippey, replacing carpet in three elementary school classrooms, repairing the roof on the gym in Rippey and updating the Google Chromebooks.
The Board then discussed the possibility of marketing the district on billboards. Superintendent Tim Christensen said the price to own a billboard for a year ranged between $5,200 to $6,000. He presented a possible design to the Board along with a design to hang banners on light poles around Jefferson. The Board took no formal action on the topic.
The meeting ended in a closed session for the superintendent’s yearly evaluation.