School Board receives audit report

With all board members present, the first item of business on the Jan. 9 R-II school board meeting was a report by Superintendent Mark Koca on the just completed audit.

He told the board, the bottom line was down about $3 million which was the bond payments.

“The net position at the end of the year was $3,165,000. That was a decrease of $2,497.035.”

He said, “Normally, that would give you a heart attack, but that was caused by spending bond funds on the construction project.”

He said, “Everything progressed pretty much as we expected.”

“As of June 30 last year we had $2.28 million in the general fund, $608,000 in debt service and $277,000 in capital projects.”

He said the net evaluation of the tax base was $94,740,775. “We did not see an increase this year to the degree that we anticipated.”

 “Our levy is $3.7607.”

“Just to remind you, that 54 cents is rolled back from about 61 cents because that’s what we told the voters we were going to do. So we’ll build a balance a little more slowly than we normally would.”

He said that school had retired $7.5 million of bonds. 

He said that for the first time in a long  time the audit showed no significant deficiencies reported.

The audit, as usual in all audits of area public bodies, showed a material weakness in segregation of duties because  of the limited number of available personnel. The district responded: The limited number of available personnel prohibits segregation of incompatible duties and the District does not have the resources to hire additional accounting personnel. In executive session, the board hired Alysson Schmitt to teach High School math the second semester. Retirements announced for June 30 were Shana Newman and Dr. Tracy Lanser.

Board candidates sign ups were Terry L. Shepard and Mark Burley who both are currently on the board.

Dr. Teresa Christian, assistant superintendent, presented the Comprehensive School Improvement Plan.

It was announced that each board member needs to complete one hour of on-line board training by April 1.

Activities Director Jeremy Barger showed the 4 ft. by 6 ft. conference banners he is working on getting the exploits of past teams on them. He is looking for information and photos of championship teams as far back as the 1920s or  when ever. If you have photos or information on winning teams of the past, please contact Barger at the school.

The new superintendent, Heath Oates, attended the meeting and sat in on the executive session. He did not address the board during the public portion of the meeting. The staff was anxious to meet him after the meeting adjourned.