Posted: 12/15/04
By Aaron Vehling
The North Branch school board approved the purchase of new buses Thursday night at their regular board meeting.
Randi Johnson, finance director, said that while the district has received bids from three different companies, she recommended they split the bid between two vendors: Hoglund for the 90-passenger buses and North Central for the 26-passenger buses.
The base price for the 90-passenger bus is $87,995, according to a bid report provided by Johnson. The district is trading in four buses for a discount of $14,000. As a result the final price is $337,980. A company named Superior actually bid $780 cheaper (by offering a greater trade-in price), but transportation director Bill Burton expressed concern about that particular model.
ìSuperior has a new, but not proven engine,î he said. ìI donít want to put the district in the position to test out that engine. They say it is a wonderful engine but I feel maybe someone else can try it.î
The 26-passenger bus will cost $73,458.
The school board also looked at a class size reduction report.
State law requires that the district set aside a portion of state revenues annually to reduce class sizes in elementary classrooms, with the highest priority in kindergarten through third grade, according to the report.
For the 2004-2005 school year this would amount to about $760,000. These funds are used solely to pay the costs of teacher wages and benefits, and provide for eleven full-time and two part-time teachers, the report said.
A shortage of classroom space and general education funding has led the district to focus on reducing class sizes in reading. The students are grouped for instruction, and in addition to regular classroom teachers, specialist teachers are on hand to work with groups of students, thus reducing the number of students working with each teacher.
In other news:
ïThe board voted to give permission to administration to seek bids for the shop welding hood project and ship dust collector projects, both of which would be paid for through Health and Safety funds.
ïThe board voted to certify the fiscal year 2005 levy.
The district held their Truth in Taxation meeting Tues night (Dec. 7), but no one from the public attended.
Truth in Taxation hearings for the school district are different than those of other bodies, such as cities. The school districtís fiscal year runs July through June and because of this, the meeting was a discussion of current budgets.
The levy impacts next school year.
The total proposed levies for this year come out to $5,793,101.19, which is up 20.05 percent from last year.
The tax impact of the levy on a residence with a market value of $150,000 was $606.26 in 2004 and for 2005 will increase 0.7 percent to $610.37, according to Johnsonís report. This value excludes the impact of property tax credits and changes in assessed valuations.
The tax impact for a commercial property with a market value of $250,000 was $1,707.52 in 2004 and for 2005 will increase 0.8 percent to $1,721.93, which excludes the impact of changes in assessed valuations, according to the report.
ïAt the boardís work session Tues night (Dec. 7) superintendent Bob Stepaniak announced that demographer Hazel Reinhardt has begun the process of collecting and researching demographic information for the school district.
Stepaniak said that Reinhardt was able to get started right away because of a ìlull in actionî in regard to demographics at the present time.
Reinhardt is conducting the study for a cost of $5,000, which is significantly less than Stepaniakís previous estimations.
Stepaniak said he anticipates that Reinhardt will be finished with her study in February.
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