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West Central Board Meets

Special Meetings of the WC CUSD #235 Board of Education

A special meeting of the West Central Community Unit School District #235 Board of Education was held on Tuesday, August 2, 2011 and the following items took place:

The meeting was called to order at 6:00 p.m. in the library on the north campus by Board President Brent. All board members except Jodi Arnold were present at roll call. Jodi Arnold entered the meeting at approximately 6:50 p.m.

The board next conducted a public hearing to receive public comment on a proposed waiver request of the Illinois School Code regarding non-resident tuition. Board President Brent called the public hearing to order at approximately 6:01 p.m. All members except Jodi Arnold were present at roll call. President Brent briefly explained the purpose of the public hearing and the rationale for the waiver request. Following this brief explanation, President Brent opened the floor for public comment. The board heard comments from two district residents regarding the proposed waiver. The first set of comments were based on questions regarding how the tuition amount is determined and how many out of district students are currently enrolled at West Central. The second comment suggested that it said a lot about our district if staff members wanted to bring their children to this district. There being no other comments on the proposed waiver, Board President Brent closed the public hearing at approximately 6:08 pbm.

The board approved payment of the July bills as presented. Mr. Grimm informed the board that on June 30, 2011, the state of Illinois owed District 235 $510,128.56 and that as of this morning; the state owes District 235 $357,235.65.

The board approved the bid from Sara Lee Companies for bread products for the 2011-2012 school year. The board approved the bid from Anderson Erickson Dairy for milk products for the 2011-2012 school year.

The board approved a request to open a second account with Geneos Wealth Management Company. This request comes from our district auditors who have suggested this as a way to separate interest earned based on the asset used to generate the interest.

The board tabled action on the proposed lease of the district owned FCC Broadband License. Mr. Grimm reviewed with the board the history of this license. He also reviewed with the board the process that has taken place up to this point with regard to the potential lease of this license. Mr. Grimm indicated that he is still in negotiation with a company to lease this license but that the negotiations have not yet been completed. Mr. Grimm suggested to the board that he would keep them informed on the progress of these negotiations.

Mr. Grimm also informed the board that there would be some work on the part of the district that will need to be done to show the FCC that the district is in fact utilizing this license.

The board approved a 3 year lease for 8 refurbished copiers from Digital Copier Services of Peoria. The lease calls for monthly payments of $1,166.66 for 166,666 copies per month.

This quote includes all costs to operate the copiers and keep them maintained. The new copiers will be delivered around October 1, 2011, when the current lease expires.

The board discussed at length a recommendation to increase lunch prices by .10 per meal.

Mr. Grimm indicated that this request is due to the Federal Breakfast and Lunch program guidelines being changed.

One of the changes is based on the amount of local effort that is being applied to fund the lunch program based on the cost of the lunch.

Mr. Grimm informed the board that in order to maximize federal reimbursement, the district would need to increase their lunch prices by .05 per meal but that he was recommending a .10 increase per meal in the hope that another increase would not be needed in the immediate future.

Mr. Grimm also informed the board that they could leave the lunch prices at their current level but the federal reimbursement would not increase going forward.

The board discussed raising the lunch prices by .05 per meal. After the discussion, a motion was made and approved to raise lunch prices by .10 per meal.

The board discussed the proposed waiver for non resident student tuition. As a result of the discussion, the board approved two motions.

The first was to approve the submission of the waiver request to ISBE.

The second was to approve a waiver of the out of district tuition for the child of any staff member who wishes to have their child(ren) attend school at West Central pending approval of the Illinois Legislature.

The board heard a brief report from Superintendent Grimm on the final unaudited FY 11 budget. Mr. Grimm reported that the district completed FY 11 with a budget surplus of approximately $980,000.

Mr. Grimm also told the board that the annual independent audit of FY 11 will take place the week of August 21, 2011 and that the board should receive the final auditors report on FY 11 at the October board meeting.

Mr. Grimm presented to the board the tentative FY 12 district budget. Mr. Grimm indicated that the tentative budget being offered is very preliminary.

Mr. Grimm indicated that he wanted to get the FY 12 budget on display in order to meet the requirement that the district budget be on display for 30 days prior to adoption.

Mr. Grimm informed the board that the FY 12 budget must be approved and filed with several different agencies by September 30th.

It was pointed out that the tentative budget is a deficit budget of approximately $940,000. The tentative budget calls for revenues of approximately $9,135,000 and expenditures of approximately $10,080,000.

Mr. Grimm pointed out that the budgeted expenditures for FY 12 were approximately $100,000 less than the budget expenditures for FY 11.

Mr. Grimm suggested to the board that district revenues were declining for the following reasons:

As a result, there is no increase included in GSA to offset the decreased in GSA that comes as a result of increasing EAV and declining enrollment.

Mr. Grimm pointed out that our enrollment on the sixth day of the 2005-2006 school year (the districts first year) was 1064 students not including Pre-K students.

The enrollment on the last day of the 2011-2012 school year was 908 not including Pre-K students.

Mr. Grimm suggested that there was more work to do on the budget and that he hoped to be able to present to the board in September a district budget with a deficit that is less than what was presented in the tentative budget.

Following a brief discussion, the board approved the tentative FY 11 district budget and directed that it be put on display in the unit office.

The board took the following action regarding personnel:

The board was reminded that their next meeting will be on Wednesday, August 17, 2011. The meeting will begin at 7 p.m. and be held in the WC Elementary Cafeteria.

There being no other business to come before the board, the meeting was adjourned at approximately 7:25 p.m.