by Tracy McCue, Sumner Newscow — Thanks to a Kansas State Supreme Court ruling forcing the Kansas State Legislature to provide more school funding, the Wellington school board approved a budget that will decrease USD 353’s tax levy by 11 mills compared to the year before.

The board unanimously approve a budget that calls for 52.417 mills for the fiscal 2014-15 school year. In 2013-14 the board had to increase the mills by .9 to 63.37 mills.

The decrease was due by the court ruling in May forcing the legislature to fund the state’s school district’s supplemental and capital outlay budgets.

But Wellington Superintendent Rick Weiss warned that this good news is temporary and this is likely to be the calm before the storm, as state revenue projections in the next couple years are expected to plummet statewide as the Brownback experiment comes to fruition. 

“Public schools will be well funded as long as it is election time,” Weiss said.

Projected revenue figures to USD 353 from the state is $15.2 million for 2014-15. In 2013-14 it was $13.06 million and $12.95 million in 2012-13. Local revenue has decreased from $10.07 million to $7.6 million. The budget is estimating $24,301,572 in combined federal, state and local revenue compared to $24,623,068 in 2013-14.

In years past Weiss said according to the Kansas State Constitution that the state should fund 78 percent of a school’s budget. This year it is closer to that mark at 62.6 percent. In 2013-14 the state contributed about 53 percent.

Bond issue sale 

Steve Shogren of Shogren and Associates and the financial advisor for the security and safety bond issue, delivered good news to the board. The bids for the bond financing for the project were under what was projected in June before the election referendum.

Wellington USD 353 voters approved a bond proposal in June to make security and safety upgrades to the seven USD 353 buildings as well as building a middle school auxiliary gym and maintenance upgrades.

Shogren said four bids were received with interest rates less than 4 percent. Robert W. Baird of New Jersey offered the lowest interest rates of 3.47 percent. Shogren estimated before the election that interest rates would be around 4 percent. Interest rates are at a 50-year low, Shogren said.

The financing for the project will cost the school district $6,838,000 over the duration of the 20-year bond issue. That is more than a million dollars less compared to $7,895,000 which was estimated to the voters. It also helped that the USD 353 Standard and Poor’s rating was an 8 which is considered very good, Shogren said.

“I think the bid is very, very good,” Shogren said. “This sale was very favorable compared to many other sales in Kansas.”

Computers

The board approved bids for 464 computers and 500 monitors. Assistant Superintendent Larry Roth said the lowest bids came from a company called CDW for HP Desktop Computers for $238,960. “Zones” – a computer software company — had the lowest bid for monitors at $70,280.

“This is good news because it came in $50,000 less than what we were expecting,” Roth said.

The desktop computers will replace all those in the Wellington High School and Middle School labs, and one computer in each classroom. There will also be 250 laptops with memory upgrades to make them compatible with Windows 7 and 8.

In other board news: 

•The board approved the following employment changes:

Resignations: Janette Moser and Tammy Potter as paras at Kennedy Elementary;

Transfer: Molly Stevens from Kennedy para to title one instructor.

Hirings: Jeff Frazee as an assistant high school basketball coach and Khim Cabalquinto, as new speech pathologist.

•An executive session was called for 20 minutes to discuss non-elected personal. No action was taken.

•After the executive session, it was discussed whether a road was needed to be constructed from the high school parking lot to the proposed apartment complex south of Wellington Wal-Mart. The conventional wisdom amongst the board member was it was unneeded.

•The board tabled a request with the painting of bleachers at the Wellington Youth Football Field at Worden Park which would cost the school district $800 to $1,000.

•David Peck, Larry Mangan and Carol Hadorn were selected to represent the board in the construction process of the upcoming school projects.

•Tami McCue was approved as a Wellington Rec board member for another four years.

•A crisis plan was adopted that included 165 pages of information.

•Wellington administrators at the various schools reported registration attendance was about the same as years past. Kennedy Elementary reported registration is up 15 students while Lincoln Elementary reported registration is down 25 students.

Official attendance figures will be taken in mid-September.

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