The Crookston School Board met on Monday evening in the Crookston High School Choir/Orchestra room and unanimously voted to set the preliminary 2021 tax levy at 7.5 percent with the hopes of getting it down to the average of 3.6 percent. The board approved two half-time positions and many new hires. The board heard from Melanie Lessard, who wanted to bring a speaker to town in November.
2021 TAX LEVY PAYABLE IN 2022
The first item on the main agenda was the Tax Levy payable in 2022, and Superintendent Jeremy Olson said he would like to set the preliminary levy at the maximum allowed at 7.5 percent with the hopes of getting the actual levy to around 3.6 percent. The board unanimously agreed to set the preliminary levy at 7.5 percent. The district is in solid financial shape, and they have some things they can do to get the levy down. “Out of due caution, we approve the maximum, and we will under levy it a little bit, and we will try to get to the 3.6 average,” said Superintendent Olson. “We are in a pretty good fiscal position right now, thanks to our school board being focused on financial accountability and making sure we are making smart decisions. We are in a spot where we can do these things.”
There are three different types of revenue the district receives. The first is state aid, where the money comes from the state of Minnesota. The second is levy money that comes from landowners within the Crookston School District. The third funding source is a mixed ratio of one part levy and one part aid. Crookston will try to under-levy the levy monies to try to save the taxpayers money. “The school board will make the final decision in December,” said Superintendent Olson. “We can under-levy money in a certain program and backfill it with general aid. It is more of a strategy to save taxpayers money.”
School Board member Mike Theis said with the City of Crookston proposing a 10 percent levy increase and the County proposing a 4.6 percent levy increase, he appreciates Superintendent Olson trying to get the levy down to around 3.6 percent because the increases are going to be a burden on district tax payers.
ADDING A TEMPORARY SCHOOL NURSE
The board approved adding a half-time temporary school nurse to help with contact tracing while COVID numbers are high in the district. “We believe there are a couple of people that might be interested in the job to help us for a little bit of time,” said Superintendent Olson. “As the community transmission is on the rise, we will need this job, and when it is down, we won’t need this job.”
The person hired will help the full-time school nurse Stacey Grunewald, who Superintendent Olson said is being run ragged.
ADDING A HALF-TIME DISTRICT OFFICE SUPPORT JOB
The board approved adding a half-time District Office support job to help out in the district office at a yearly cost of $19,200. “We cut a full-time position several years ago, and we are looking to build capacity in our district office,” said Superintendent Olson. “I don’t believe there is a need for a full-time job at this time, so we will have somebody work four hours per day to help get some jobs that have been put off for many years.”
SPEAKER PROPOSAL –
The board heard from Crookston School District resident Melanie Lessard during the public comment session, and she said she will be bringing in a speaker in November and wanted to know if the school district would want to be involved. Lessard said the Crookston Inn has already said they would host the speaker and UMC is interested. Superintendent Olson commented during his report that they don’t think right now is the right time and today was the first they had heard of a November date. “We believe this is the wrong time due to the students trying to heal after a student death, obviously it was hard on our student community,” said Olson. “We would like to wait because we have strong mental health support and capacity with Aluma Mental Health in the district. We are looking at the speakers credentials, and it is more about trying to prevent students from making destructive decisions which we believe would be a great topic leading up to the spring with prom and graduation. That looks like a better time to do this, and we haven’t had a whole lot of communication about this November date, so rather than adjust our schedule, we would like to work collaboratively instead of having a schedule being forced on us.”
SCHOOL DISTRICT NOT GETTING FEDERAL FUNDING FOR REQUIRING MASKS
Crookston School Board member Tim Dufault said he had somebody ask if the district is receiving money from the Federal Government to require facemasks for K through 6 students. Dufault contacted the Minnesota School Board Association (MSBA), and they are not receiving funding for the mask mandate. “We talked to the Executive Director at the MSBA, and he checked with their lawyer, and he said there is no program like that in Minnesota,” said Dufault. “They think the rumor started because the Governor in Florida said you can’t mandate face masks and said if schools did, they wouldn’t fund them. So the federal government said they would fund schools in Florida if the state cut off the money so they wouldn’t go bankrupt. It had nothing with direct payments because of facemasks, it was because they stepped in to make sure they were funded. But nothing for Crookston.”
CONSENT AGENDA APPROVED
The consent agenda included approval of Lane Advance Requests, Letters of Assignment, and Employment agreements with Greg Garmen, Whitney Rupprecht, and Gary Stegman. The board accepted Margaret Emanuel’s resignation from her position of Instructional assistant at Highland Elementary School.
The board approved a leave of absence request from Highland Elementary 1st Grade Teacher Sarah Pester, employment with Heather Rosu as an Instructional Assistant at Washington School, and approvals of Amy Scott, Lydia Hegge, JoDanna Plante, and Janea Luckow as Paraprofessionals. Lastly, they approved increasing Speech-Language therapist Kristy Fitzgerald from a .9 to a full-time role and the Paraprofessional Master Agreement.
MISC –
269 kids attended the Crookston High School homecoming dance on Friday.
October 4 will be the first day of the K-6 student mask mandate.
The track and field complex estimates have come in a little higher than hoped, and Superintendent Olson said they will have to hold a special meeting to get the direction the board wants him to go.
The next school board meeting will be on October 25 at 5:00 p.m.
