Tuesday evening members of the Northeast Dubois School Board listened to recommendations from Superintendent Bill Hochgesang for the upcoming school year.
Classes begin for students in the Northeast Dubois district Tuesday August 9th.
School educators, administrators and staff are completing plans and settling on decisions as they start the fall semester.
Among these plans are a shift in educational roles amid the resignation of the Project Lead the Way teacher Cristopher Collins. Hochgesang describes the collaborative team effort from educators and administrators as they look to make changes work just in time for the school year to begin.
Hochgesang also presented information on the corporation’s 2017 Budget. He explained that the current budget estimate was placed at a total of $10,357,672 from 15 budget line items the school corporation deals with such as the general fund, school pension, capital projects, bus replacement, among others.
He also mentioned that the maximum estimated funds to be raised stands at a total $3.5 million and noted that the corporation usually receives around $2.4 to 2.5 million and that for 2016 the tax levy totaled just over 2-million. He also mentioned the tax rate for 2016 was 79 cents.
Hochgesang stated that by August 1st the corporation should find out the excess values which will be just in time when hearings will be held for capital projects and bus replacements to be discussed.
For this 2017 budget, the requested amount was for the board to approve and advertise on July 29th ; advertising only the capital project funds plan and the bus replacement fund plan, the board approved this motion unanimously.
OTHER ITEMS
Other items approved last night include yearly educational field trips and handbook changes for the schools.
Also in efforts to get ahead of a potential security matter, Hochgesang addressed the prevention of Pokemon Go activity on school property.
In this notice to the public it states that due to students, faculty, and staff safety the school corporation is granted the authority to restrict public access from wandering about school property for the purpose unrelated to school and also keeping potential vandalism in mind.
FINALLY
And finally a public meeting will take place August 9th at 6pm in the Dubois Middle School Multipurpose room to hold a question and answer about the corporation’s referendum.
For anyone interested there is a Referendum Calculator on the Northeast Dubois website at nedubois.k12.in.us.
Visitors can just scroll down to “Additional Information” on the main page to calculate their asses value to find out the impact of the 18 cent referendum.
Once again, that public hearing is set for Tuesday August 9th beginning at 6 pm at the Dubois Middle School.
