R-5 board sets tax levy for new year

Friday, August 11, 2006

By Steve Moyer

Nevada Daily Mail

Patrons of the Nevada R-5 School District will pay the same tax rate as last year.

The board met Wednesday evening in the board room of Nevada High School, and a public hearing was held to set the tax rate for the district. Superintendent Craig Noah explained the overall rate would stay the same as the prior year but the amounts collected for the three funds would be allocated differently.

"Last year the rate was $3.57 and this year it will be the same," Noah said. "However last year the incidental fund was set at $2.58, teachers at $0.98 and the debt service was set at one cent. This year we could set incidental at $2.58, teacher at $0.98 and debt service at $0.19 but I suggest we roll back the incidental to $2.45, teacher to $0.98 and debt service to $0.14.

The board approved the suggested tax rate, which is estimated to bring in $5,323,273 for the next year.

Noah also informed the board about a recent issue brought up by the United States Department of Agriculture over the commodities that are donated to schools. USDA wanted the schools to document the donations as a line item on budgets going back to 1997.

"USDA told the Department of Elementary and Secondary Education that all schools that have contracted with a food service provider must have a line item in their food service budgets showing the dollar amount of the commodities they had received from 1997 to 2004," Noah said. "USDA wanted us to revise our budgets from that time to show the amount but those years are over and closed. Several administrators at a conference concerning the issue phoned Senator Jim Talent and he arranged it so that all that had to be done was for a letter from DESE to the USDA showing the amount involved. The '05 and '06 budgets have the line item showing how much commodities were received."

The house the building trades students constructed has still received no bids and Noah asked the board to extend the deadline for bids until Oct. 1 and the board agreed.

"This is a great house and it will receive some bids," Noah said. "The minimum bid should remain at $185,000."

Noah asked the board to authorize him to look into procuring a Web-based security camera system for the district.

"We have been researching the possibility of installing Web-based surveillance cameras," Noah said. "They are quite different from the VCR-based systems, they would be accessible to emergency responders using a password."

Noah told the board the system was more for facility safety than to monitor students.

"If there were a lock-down situation the police could use the cameras to observe what is happening in the facility," Noah said.

The board authorized Noah to look into the purchase of a system in the $35,000 range.

Bryan Thompsen, Nevada High School principal, also updated the board on the Professional Learning Communities model for improvement at the high school.

"We looked at the system and asked what the staff needed to implement this better," Thompsen said. "The number one thing was collaborative time for the staff to coordinate their efforts. After that, more time for instruction and answering the question, what is a PLC."

"I think this is a solution that can be implemented K-12, but the staff has to have the knowledge to implement them," Thompsen said.

Board members Larry Forkner and Jan Benbrook noted the need for staff and parents to get behind the program for it to be successful.

"It seems extremely important that the staff buy into this program," Forkner said.

"The parents have to buy into this as well," Benbrook said

"Absolutely, it has to be a collaborative effort," Noah said.

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