The Crookston School Board met on Monday night approving both the sale of general obligation school building bonds and awarding the bid for construction of the district’s new bus garage. The winning bond bid went to BAIRD out of Milwaukee, Wisconsin for an interest rate of 1.2772%.
Superintendent Jeremy Olson said the district got lucky as the interest rate lowered the tax impact by $31,600 a year. “We received a pretty nice premium which allowed us to lower the overall tax impact,” said Olson. “The overall tax impact because of the bond sale was lowered by about $32,000 a year. It’s always nice to be wrong in the right direction. There is about a 1.27, 1.28 percent interest rate which is really favorable.”
The rate the district received on the bonds means the actual tax impact beginning in taxes payable in 2021 will be lower than anticipated. For example, the annual taxes on a $200,000 home were anticipated at $62 a year, that number will be $52 a year beginning in 2021. The final tax impact can be found here on page ten of the bond sale.
According to Olson, the extra tax dollars collected in 2020 will go toward the down payment on the principal further lowering the interest paid by the district. “Basically, we had to levy the dollars this year without having the bond sale,” said Olson. “Next year you’re going to see a slight lowering of those numbers because we are going off the actuals and not projections. The additional dollars paid this year go right into the principal which further reduces the net impact over the next ten years. It’s really a good deal for our taxpayers. The (interest) was expected to be right around $517,000 and it’s right around $380,000 with how the proceeds came in. It’s a good deal for taxpayers and it also helped to lower everyone’s taxes slightly.”
Three companies bid (bid specs here) on the construction of the bus garage, Bradbury Stamm, Mak Construction and Sand Steel Construction. Olson suggested that the board accept the bid from Sand Steel using only the first two alternates, asphalt outside the garage, and in-floor heating in the mechanic’s bay. However, both Frank Fee and Mike Theis spoke about the need to add alternate three to the project, which was an exhaust hose system, to improve the air quality and safety in the garage. To accomplish that the board lowered the contingency fund for issues during construction by $20,000 explains Olson. “We need to have a certain amount of contingency if we were to come across bad soil conditions or other conditions we weren’t expecting,” said Olson.
The board ultimately moved the contingency down to $80,000 and then, accepted three alternates.
The first was to have a paved parking lot. “I think we were pretty upfront with taxpayers as something that was desired initially so,” said Olson. “We wouldn’t get gravel onto the street, in with the buses and a cleaner atmosphere.”
The second was in-floor heat in the bus garage. “That was something the committee talked about wanting to see,” said Olson. “In the mechanic’s bay, having that floor heat is ideal for when you’re doing maintenance work on buses.”
The third item is a hose reel for exhausting out bus fumes and that was an alternate that the board decided to adjust down our contingency from $100,000 to $80,000 to get that system in the bus garage. The board ultimately decided on Sand Steel as the vendor we’d be going with.”
Before deciding to add the exhaust system to the project the board had discussed finding another way to install that system after the bus garage was completed, which Olson told the board he understood could be done at any time. Olson also said it was ideal to make the bus garage as safe and healthy as possible. “That’s ideal,” said Olson. “You don’t want to have exhaust fumes in a bus garage. Even though we do have some makeup air systems that are required under statute, requiring us to have some type of system, this is more direct. And it improves the overall longevity of the building.”
The total approved bid and fees for the bus garage:
| Base Bid | $2,460,000 |
| Alt. 1: Asphalt | $148,000 |
| Alt. 2: In-floor Heating | $80,000 |
| Alt. 3: Exhaust Hose Reel | $20,000 |
| Alt. 4: Makeup Air System | Not included |
| Architectural Fee | $135,000 |
| Inspection Fees | $6,700 |
| Contingency Fund | $80,000 |
| Grand Total | $2,929,700 |
Olson also presented a plan to expand preschool to five days a week for the preschool program directly proceeding kindergarten, more commonly referred to as the five-year-old program. With that, Olson presented a change in the administrative structure at Crookston High School to make the change without adding to the district’s payroll. With Ray Lutovsky, high school counselor retiring, Olson’s proposal was to combine the 1.0 FTE counselor and .67 FTE Dean of Students position into a 1.0 FTE (full-time equivalent) Assistant Principal. Matt Torgerson, the current Dean and band instructor would fill that position taking on the administrative duties Lutovsky performs, while his band duties would go to a new 1.0 FTE to teach band, a college elective music course, and music at the preschool level.
Olson explained that by adding music to the preschool program, preschool teachers would get their required prep time to offer preschool five days a week. “Currently we have a split position,” said Olson. “Two-thirds of the day we have Matt Torgerson as a Dean of Students and one-third of the day he is a band instructor. The proposal is to make Matt an assistant principal, move that to a 1.0 FTE position. Then, Ray Lutovsky (who is retiring) as a school counselor, move his responsibilities to Matt. He focuses on administration pieces. Then hire a 1.0 FTE for music. That would be the one-third position from Matt, then teach music for the preschool to provide a prep (hour) for our five-day preschool. The idea is to facilitate a five-day preschool option for our constituents and also reconfigure high school administration responsibilities.”
Jen Lubinski, a parent of three Crookston students spoke against the move during the open forum. Among her concerns, Lubinski expressed concerns about suicide, which the Crookston School District has experienced in recent years, and not meeting the suggested guidelines from the National Association of School Counselors. Those guidelines suggest a ratio of 1:250 for counselors to students. Olson said the proposal moves the administrative duties within the school but that two half-time mental health practitioners are also embedded in the school and that combined with school counselor Leah Zimmerman, the ratio of full-time equivalent counseling and mental health staff is about 1:275.
The mental health practitioners are embedded in the school district from the Northwest Mental Health Center, and Olson said that partnership is very valuable to the district. “We very much value our partnership with Northwest Mental Health (Center),” said Olson. “They are embedded mental health practitioners in our buildings. At Washington, it’s very part-time because of the nature of having kindergarten and preschool there. At Highland, we have two people embedded in our system. Then we have two half-time people here at the high school strictly focused. That is a growing need and we realize we need to continue to focus on those needs. We feel embedding mental health practitioners is the best way to serve students.”
Olson also told the board he stands ready to increase the FTE positions available for mental health in the school, adding that mental health needs are ever-changing and need to continue to be addressed. “The need for mental health is going to be contingent on what the needs of our student body are,” said Olson. “That’s an ever-changing, ever-flowing situation we need to continue to address. That administration of PSEO (post-secondary enrollment options) and transcripts, that’s something that is a little more fluid and can be absorbed in the high school office. And that’s where this plan is coming from, is trying to reposition, in a budget-neutral way, our administrative staff to meet the needs of five-year-old (program) and also meet the needs of our high school office.”
School Board member Dave Davidson, however, expressed concern with the proposal and how it could affect the counseling of students at the high school. Davidson also added he believes counseling was a key proponent to keeping students in the classroom and addressing Crookston’s trend in declining enrollment before motioning the discussion to be tabled. All present board members voted for tabling except for Tim Dufault. The board will hold a special meeting on Tuesday, March 17 at 4:00 p.m. to discuss the proposal.
The board also approved a resolution directing the administration to make recommendations for the reduction of programs, positions and the reasons therefor. Fee expressed that passing the resolution happens in every district at this time of year in case cuts need to be made and said that doing so is not an indication of upcoming cuts to programs or positions within the district. Fee also gave the public report, which matched his previous comments (here), on the Superintendent’s evaluation (here), restating that Olson had received high marks. The board also passed its consent agenda and had previously reviewed reports submitted in the school board member’s packets from the school principals and superintendent, which they acknowledged.
