January 13, 2020 at 4:00 PM - Board of Education Regular Meeting

More Information:  Mission Statement - Milford Public Schools will prepare all students to be successful citizens: Our Mission is fulfilled when all students read with comprehension, speak and write clearly, compute accurately, reason logically, understand and appreciate the fine arts, apply suitable strategies and habits of mind to solve problems, utilize technology to communicate and to understand information and behave morally.

This agenda contains a list of subjects known at the time of its distribution.  A copy of the agenda reflecting any changes will be available for public inspection during normal business hours in the District Office.  Except for items of an emergency nature, the agenda shall not be altered later than twenty-four hours before the meeting.  The Board reserves the right to alter the order of items, as it deems necessary.

More Information: 

Information concerning the Open Meeting Law, Chapter 84, Article 14 of Nebraska State Statutes, is posted on the bulletin board in the back of the meeting room.

More Information: 

President Welsch will open the meeting and complete Items 2.1 to 2.3.  Superintendent Wingard will lead Item 2.4 - Election of Officers. 

Current Officers:
Dave Welsch - President
Tony Roth - Vice President
Craig Shaw - Secretary
Jim Stahly - Treasurer

We have two options for the election of officers process according to Policy 2002:

Option #1:
A board member has the option of making a motion to suspend the rules and retain current officers.  Once this motion is made, a second would be needed and then discussion and voting could take place.  If a second is not received, the motion would die for lack of a second or supporting motion.

Option #2:
Election positions:

1.  A nomination ballot listing all board members will be distributed.
2.  Each board member will nominate two members for president.  The two members receiving the most votes are nominated.  In the event of a tie among three or more members, the members who tied advance to a second nomination ballot.  Again, each member votes for two with the two members receiving the most votes being the nominees for the office.
3.  The two nominees are placed on a ballot for election to the office.  In the event of a tie, a second vote will be taken.  In the event of a second tie, the winner will be selected by a toss of a coin.
4. The same procedure will be followed for nominating and electing the vice president, however, the member elected president will not be on the ballot.
5. The remaining four board members will be nominees for treasurer.  A vote will be taken as in #3 above, but using the remaining four members as the nominees.
6. The remaining three board members will be nominees for secretary.  The same voting process as in #3 above, but using the remaining three members as the nominees.

Committees:

The Board president appoints committee members.  The attached documents is the current list.  All I did was change the years in the title.

More Information: 

This is the public’s opportunity to speak to items on the agenda. This is also the public’s opportunity to speak to any topic concerning the school district – since it is not an agenda item the board cannot discuss or take action on the matter at this time. Future discussion can be requested as an agenda item. To be recognized, all participants must complete the Request to Address the Milford Board of Education Form. No complaints regarding specific staff members will be heard during a public meeting. The District has established separate procedures for complaints against individual employees. Thank you for your participation.

More Information: 

General Fund for $114,176.79
Payroll for $628,126.04
Total $742,302.83

 

More Information:  Current Numbers:
K-6 = 440
7-8 = 97
9-12 = 221
K-12 Total = 758
This is up by 5 student compared to last month

Side note - right now we have 60-62 students on our kindergarten list for 2020-21.

More Information:  Elementary

1. We are in!
2. There are a number of items still being completed but so far the transition has been great.
3. We have received a lot of positive comments from student and staff and a few parents.

High School

1. It is moving along!
2. We had a major water leak during the break.  Tru Built will be replacing some items that were affected by the water.
3. We are having a few electrical issues associated with the addition.  The issue really is associated with our original wiring.  With new codes, we cannot just connect the new addition's electrical requirements to our old system.  Several updates need to be made to existing electrical boxes and wiring.

More Information: 

Open discussion as needed.

More Information:  As we discussed at previous board meetings, we received a request for a property exchange from Curtis and Jamie Hackbart.  Curtis and Jamie are making a request to exchange their property that is in our district with their neighbor's property owned by Blaine and Sharon Clowser.

During those discussions it was discovered that not all of the Clowser property was included in the original application turned in by the Hackbarts.  They are back with all current documents.

We are being asked to act on the proposal this month.  Nothing has changed other than the sliver of land we pointed out last month is now included in the exchange request.

The following information is from our past meetings:
During discussions on this request we must follow the process located in the following document:  Title 92, Rule 83: State Committee for the Reorganization of School Districts.

We have attached their formal request, the assessor documents related to each property, and a map that shows the surrounding properties and the school district in which the property is located.

Couple of items to point out:

1. The Seward School Board approved the property exchange at their November meeting.
2. The Hackbart property, which is in our school district boundary, has an assessed value of $256,014.  The Clowser property, which is in the Seward district, has an assessed value of $238,960.  A difference of $17,054.  Currently, this would be a loss of $157 of property tax revenue based on the current valuations and levy.
3. If an exchange were approved by both districts, the Clowser property would move to our levy structure and would have to keep the Seward Public Schools Bond Levy as well. 
4. I will want to look at the attachment of the additional map.

More Information:  In November I shared the following Areas of Concern from the audit:

1. We received our yearly deficiency of lack of personnel which leads to a segregation of duties deficiency.
2. We also received a compliance concern related to the Special Building Fund.
   1. Mierau & Co. feel we need to budget for the actual amount of our approved note with Farmers & Merchants Bank - $1,395,557.

I have shared that I disagreed with Item 2.  After meeting with the Nebraska Department of Education's finance department, they agree with my concerns.  I was told they agree with my request for eliminating this compliance issue.

The motion below will reflect this discussion.

More Information:  President Welsch has sent board members a copy of the evaluation results. He will lead this process.

The Board policies associated with the Superintendent's position and evaluation are attached.  We also attached the form we currently use. 

More Information: 

These are policies that we review each January.  If a change is recommended, we will add it to the February agenda.

More Information: 

This is a yearly requirement.

More Information: 

This is a yearly item.  We appoint Tammy as the day-to-day treasurer.

More Information:  The Cross Country Team is planning on attending the same summer camp as they did last year.  The camp is in Norwalk, Iowa and they will be attending the camp June 24th - 26th.  Policy 6027 requires the Board to act on out of state trips.

More Information:  Our meeting agenda is full this month so we have a couple of options for reviewing responses to the planning questions:

1. We can use the February board meeting for review.  It would be the last agenda item so we would have as much time as we want for discussions.
   1. The February meeting agenda is generally centered around reports.  Looking at previous year's agendas, we have had very few action items on the February agendas.
2. We look at all of our calendars and plan a special meeting.
   1. If we choose to have a special meeting we will need a motion with date and time.

More Information:  Mr. Carritt has turned in his letter of resignation/retirement.

More Information:  Mrs. Ruhl has turned in her letter of resignation.

More Information: 

The Board of Education reserves the right to enter into Closed/Executive Session for 1) the protection of the public interest, or 2) the prevention of needless injury to the reputation of an individual, and/or the individual has not requested a public meeting. When making a motion to enter into Closed/Executive Session, the member making the motion should be as specific as possible as to the reason(s) for executive session.

The Board President will restate the reason for Closed/Executive Session after the motion has been acted on.