Farm Bureau - Melissa Wheeler

The North Bend Eagle

 

School board approves tax levey

by Mary Le Arneal
Published 9/22/21

The North Bend Central Board of Education held three meetings Sept. 15. The first meeting was a public hearing on the budget.

Superintendent Dan Endorf gave an overview of the budget saying the general fund is primed for less tax asking after another year of stable revenue and expenditures. Changes to the budget will come from the hail claim projects and elementary school updates.

The budget hearing was closed at 8:14 p.m. and the hearing to set the final tax request was opened.

With a total tax requirement of $8,416,790, the levy was set at $.756. In comparison, the 2017-18 the levy was $.7411, in ‘18-’19 it was $.7612, in ‘19-’20 it was $.7749, last year it was $.78.

The meeting closed at 8:19 p.m. and a regular meeting of the Board of Education was opened.

The first item on the agenda was the motion to adopt the 2021-22 budget as presented for the General Fund, Special Building Fund, Bond Fund, Qualified Capital Purposes Undertaking Fund, Depreciation Fund, Activity Fund, Student Fee Fund, Contingency Fund, Employee Benefit Fund and the Lunch Fund. The budget was accepted as presented.

The total assessed value of property differs from last year’s total assessed value by 1.01 percent. NBC proposed to adopt a property tax request that will cause its tax rate to be $0.756002 per $100.

Endorf noted that the ‘20-’21 budget was ‘out of kilter’ because the students didn’t go anywhere (field trips, other outings) and funds from COVID programs were recieved.

The board spent a time discussing the meeting with the architecture firm of Clark and Enersen who are doing the remodeling of the elementary school. The board felt that their bid was high, with the many unknowns in the supply and worker area, there was hope that some of the cost would be less in the future.

Elementary principal Tessie Beaver spoke to the board about the number of students in preschool and kindergarten. Kindergarten students showed up at the start of school who were not expected. Beaver says they try to keep track of possible incoming students by noting birth announcements and other resources. There are presently nine option-in students in the preschool, it being unknown if they would all like to go on to kindergarten at NBE next year.

“It’s a hard number to predict,” Beaver said about the number of kindergartners. “There is room to expand, just not the personnel now.”

The next regular meeting of the school board will be Oct. 11 at 7:30 p.m.

 

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