Waynoka's school year ended with awards assemblies and a mix of excitement for summer and sadness at leaving friends and trusted teachers, Elementary Principal Patricia Burrow told the Waynoka Board of Education at its regular meeting Monday.
“The teachers and staff worked extremely hard to make this past year successful and the end product was nothing less than excellent,” she said. “We will miss Mrs. Bixler, Mrs. Hofen and Mrs. Terrel, but wish them the best!”
Summer camp has begun. Twenty-two students will enter first through third grades and 21 students entering fourth through sixth grades are enrolled in this summer's project-based STEM camp. Last week students examined air, making balloon cars that modeled Newton's Third Law of Motion, concocting different bubble solutions to test in multiple experiments, and staging a battle between individually made stomp rockets. The week ended with a field trip to the Stafford Air and Space Museum in Weatherford, she said. This week's “big idea” is water, and next week it will be sun.
Superintendent Warns of Downward Trend in Revenue
Although some of the tax protest collections are coming in, Superintendent Scott Cline warned the board of what appears to be a downward trend in revenue.
Expenditures are about the same as last year at this point, Cline said, and the general fund is a little higher than last year at this time because some of the tax protests have been settled, “but we still have under-collected $846,000 on the year,” he said.
“One thing of note: the county assessor's office settled with Mach for fiscal years 2018-20,” he said. “We did take a pretty decent hit there.” The school's assessed value had been $352,000; the new assessed value is $198,000. “So it's a 43% reduction,” Cline said, “the reason for that being that they have determined that the gas lift compressors are gross production and they cannot assess them the way they've been assessing them. So those fell off the rolls, bringing that assessed value down.
“The trend is not very good for us. If you remember, we settled with OneOK, Panhandle and Glass Mountain, and those averaged anywhere from a 33% reduction to a 67% reduction. So everything seems to be going down for us, so that's not a very good sign.”
However, the child nutrition fund is doing well. “Looking at our child nutrition fund, as you can see in there we've spent less but that's all due to how many kids are eating. Now, we are doing some summer programs, so in June we will probably see more expenditures than typical because we're normally shut down by now, but we're doing a summer food program. Overall, we've lost $7,000 in that program, which is a lot better than typically have been.”
The daycare program is down $62,000, so that program will be examined for improvements, Cline said.
An opportunity for saving a little money came up later in the meeting when Cline told the board about his sending the worker's compensation contract re-bid. The worker's comp contract with OSAG had a renewal cost of $15,111, which seemed high to Cline, so he had the contract re-bid through BancFirst.
“The cheapest was $10,448 through our agent at BancFirst. OSAG came in at $7,941 this year, so almost cut it in half. So that's where I come to you guys to give me advice on how to proceed. I mean, the thing I can't wrap my mind around is if they could have been that cheap all along then why are we just now getting that?” Cline looked at past years and saw that the school has been paying considerably more than $8,000 for the past five years.
Although the board members appeared to find the situation a bit annoying as well, after discussion the board voted to go with the lowest bid anyway and voted to award the contract to OSAG.
Other Board Business
Cline has received three resignations: special education teacher Sharee Madsen, who has moved on to another school; and support staff Rachel Watson and Gail Nickelson. Later, the board voted to re-employ support staff, including moving Amy Ferguson from part-time to full-time.
The school board approved leasing school-owned houses to Chad Bocker, Tanner Allen and Isaac Sanders; and approved qualifying students and sponsors to attend the FCCLA National Leadership Conference June 27 – July 2 in Nashville.
The board also voted to approve:
• the contract for the 2020-2021 school year audit to be conducted in the 2021-22 fiscal year by Chas. W. Carrol, P.A.
• temporary appropriations for FY2021-22.
• the agreement for legal services with the Center for Education Law for the 2021-22 school year.
• the agreement between the Cooperative Council for Oklahoma School Administration (CCOSA) and Waynoka School District for the participation in CCOSA'S District Level Services Program for the 2021-22 school year.
• the service agreement with OSSBA Employment Services for the 2021-22 school year.
• the Pediatric Physical Therapy and Occupational Therapy Service contract with Northwest Physical Therapy and Sports Rehab for the 2021-22 school year.
• the School Resource Officer agreement with the City of Waynoka
• the calendar for Beginning Tracks Childcare Center for the 2021-22 school year.
• the daycare handbook for Beginning Tracks Childcare Center for the 2021-22 school year.
• the consent agenda, consisting of minutes of previous meetings; the general, building, activity, and bond fund reports and encumbrances; and change orders.
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