{"id":480,"date":"2018-02-12T23:51:33","date_gmt":"2018-02-12T23:51:33","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/brownsburgsentinel.com\/site\/?p=480"},"modified":"2018-05-02T23:53:19","modified_gmt":"2018-05-02T23:53:19","slug":"february-school-board-report","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/brownsburgsentinel.com\/site\/2018\/02\/12\/february-school-board-report\/","title":{"rendered":"February School Board Report"},"content":{"rendered":"
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The February School Report by – Jan Ditmire<\/h2>\n

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The February School Report<\/p>\n

Brownsburg school board president, Phil Utterback, runs an efficient meeting, lasting maybe 30 minutes.\u00a0 All board votes described below were 5-0 approved.<\/p>\n

The February 12<\/strong> school board meeting was called to order and, after the Pledge of Allegiance and moment of silence, the board members dispensed with consent items – January 8 meeting minutes, claims totaling $27.7 million and Superintendent\u2019s Report.<\/p>\n

Dr. Snapp\u2019s report includes changes in staffing for various reasons, e.g.<\/em>, retirements and leaves of absence; disposition of various field trip requests; approval of certain professional services agreements and construction change orders; as well as provides his recommendations for board action.\u00a0 He recommended the board approve changes to employee benefits and sale of surplus equipment.\u00a0 The employee benefit change revises eligibility for new hires, effective February 1:\u00a0 the new employee must work 30 or more hours, and for bus drivers, drive four segments each day, to receive benefits.<\/p>\n

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The last school day for this year is May 25, commencement, is June 2.<\/span><\/h1>\n<\/blockquote>\n

The board commended Joe Clemens, long-serving board member of the Brownsburg 1999 School Building Corporation.\u00a0 [See <\/em>sidebar regarding the building corporation as a financing vehicle.]\u00a0 He has served the Corporation through the construction and renovation of several projects including Cardinal, Delaware and Reagan elementary schools; East Middle School; BHS fieldhouse, swimming pool and senior academy; and White Lick and Eagle elementary school renovations.\u00a0 Mr. Clemens is retiring to Illinois.<\/p>\n

John Voigt, head of school operations, touched on several items.\u00a0 He reported that St. Malachy Parish will not be renewing its agreement with BSCS for transport of its students to St. Malachy School.\u00a0 Termination of this arrangement, which has been in place for many years, is due to St. Malachy changing its student class hours.\u00a0 Also, the ten mobile classrooms, most of which were installed at Eagle and Reagan schools, are being disposed of.\u00a0 They are no longer needed with the opening of Lincoln Elementary School and student redistricting next fall.\u00a0 Construction of the Lincoln school and renovations at BHS are ahead of schedule.<\/p>\n

Mr. Voigt gave very informative reports about revising walking area boundaries and disposal of school bus 69.\u00a0 With the increase in Northfield Drive traffic, the eastern walking area boundary will be revised from CR 900 E to Northfield Drive for Reagan Elementary students.\u00a0 The eastern boundary will remain CR 900E for secondary grades.\u00a0 This revision will be presented in March for board approval.\u00a0 The transportation department has been able to utilize parts from retired Bus 69 to repair other school buses.\u00a0 Its current trade-in value is $2,000 but salvaging parts has saved over $12,000.\u00a0 The two large side mirrors alone each cost $2,000 to replace.\u00a0 When scrapped, the bus carcass will provide $850.<\/p>\n

First readings were conducted for the school police handbook (changes regarding proficiencies and training), the academic handbooks for the several schools (changes regarding sexual harassment language, et al<\/em>.), the athletic handbooks (changes to names and dates), and the school 2019-2020 school calendar.\u00a0 The proposed school calendar for 2019-2020 (year after next school year) provides that school will start on August 1 and end on May 29 with commencement on June 6, whereas next year, 2018-2019, these days are August 2, May 31 and June 8.\u00a0 [The last school day for this year is May 25, commencement, June 2.]<\/p>\n

Under New Business, the board approved increases in certain fees, the sole compliant bid to re-roof White Lick elementary, and revisions to Early Childhood Center fees.\u00a0 Transportation fees to be paid for extracurricular travel, such as athletic teams, marching band and choir trips to competition venues.\u00a0 The fees will be increased to $25.75 per hour per driver and $2.40 per mile traveled.\u00a0 Only one bid complied with BSCS safety requirements, another not responding to requests for safety-related information.\u00a0 And ECC annual curriculum fees will be separated into preschool ($65) and childcare ($25).Under Old Business, the board conducted a public hearing regarding issuance of a general obligation bond intended to cover maintenance, equipment replacement and facility improvements anticipated over the next year.\u00a0 These projects include such items as the re-roof of White Lick Elementary, building access control improvements and replacements, BHS Aquatic Center HVAC system replacement, re-paving and technology-related purchases, and attendant costs.\u00a0 The property tax impact will be zero.\u00a0 The proposed board resolution provides that the bond was not to exceed $7 million bearing interest not exceeding four percent annually and is scheduled to mature in 2028.\u00a0 Among other things, the resolution certified certain statutory tests would be met, including comparison of net assessed valuation of taxable property in Lincoln and Brown townships and outstanding BSCS indebtedness.\u00a0 Unlike appropriations of tax dollars, appropriation of bond proceeds is not required to be approved by the Indiana Department of Local Government Finance under most circumstances.\u00a0 No one spoke at the hearing and it was closed.\u00a0 At that point, the board voted to approve the resolution.<\/p>\n

The meeting closed with superintendent and board comments.\u00a0 Dr. Snapp shared the process for staffing new Lincoln Elementary.\u00a0 All elementary teachers will complete transfer forms listing their first-second-third choices for building assignment.\u00a0 These teachers will know their assignment by Spring Break.\u00a0 Additionally, two middle school teachers are affected by redistricting and will be offered other positions.\u00a0 Board member, Dr. Freije, congratulated the BSCS transportation department on excellent results scrapping Bus 69 and commended Cardinal Elementary on the recent science night it hosted.\u00a0 Meeting adjourned.<\/p>\n

Building Corporation Lease Financing<\/h4>\n

Indiana\u2019s constitutional limit on a political subdivision\u2019s issuance of debt is two percent of the actual value of property within its corporate boundaries.\u00a0 By statute, an Indiana school corporation cannot issue bonds exceeding two percent of the true tax value of its property.\u00a0 Alternatives exist to get around these debt limits, one of which includes leases.\u00a0 This is the most common financing arrangement used in Indiana to finance schools.\u00a0 Generally, under this structure, the school corporation, as lessee\/tenant, enters into a lease agreement with a non-profit corporation formed for that purpose, as lessor\/landlord.\u00a0 The non-profit corporation issues bonds on behalf of the school corporation; the lease typically extends for a term intended to match the debt service repayments on the bonds.\u00a0 The annual lease payments made by the school corporation from property tax revenue form a stream of revenue and security for the bonds.\u00a0 The non-profit corporation mentioned here is the Brownsburg 1999 School Building Corporation.\u00a0 Mr. Clemens served on the building corporation board as a director. – By\u00a0Jan Ditmire<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The February School Report by – Jan Ditmire   The February School Report Brownsburg school board president, Phil Utterback, runs an efficient meeting, lasting maybe 30 minutes.\u00a0 All board votes described below were 5-0 approved. The February 12 school board meeting was called to order and, after the Pledge of Allegiance and moment of silence, […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":482,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"ngg_post_thumbnail":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[22],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-480","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-schoolboard"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/brownsburgsentinel.com\/site\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/480"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/brownsburgsentinel.com\/site\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/brownsburgsentinel.com\/site\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/brownsburgsentinel.com\/site\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/brownsburgsentinel.com\/site\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=480"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"https:\/\/brownsburgsentinel.com\/site\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/480\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":485,"href":"https:\/\/brownsburgsentinel.com\/site\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/480\/revisions\/485"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/brownsburgsentinel.com\/site\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/482"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/brownsburgsentinel.com\/site\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=480"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/brownsburgsentinel.com\/site\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=480"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/brownsburgsentinel.com\/site\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=480"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}