Post date: Nov 20, 2009 8:17:18 PM
**SOS (Save Our Steinway) is set for Dec. 20. There will be a Soup feed, silent auction, and concert.
**High School Student Council is getting food to donate to food bank
**District Newsletter is being mailed to taxpayers week of Thanksgiving. Part of the PR board committee. Cost to district is about $600 total for first printing and mailing.
Big thanks to Joan LaFrancois. She has put endless hours into putting it together.
**MAP testing was coordinated (& paid for?) through the special education department.
** From Mr. Mepham:
-The district was audited through 2 different formats and passed. Just a few changes need to be made, like tracking money better when fundraising.
-We count Ranch For Kids in our A/B, but may change. OPI is getting involved.
-Biomass was down for 2 weeks. Costs district about $500/day but could be as much as $1000/day if goes down in hard winter. Mr. Mepham and staff working hard to
get problem fixed once and for all
**Elementary count is down 20 students which equates to about $100,000 in lost funding to the district. Trend has been happening for awhile,mostly seen in K-2. This
means the elementary is currently overstaffed. Will be significant staff and budget changes for next year and probably years to come.
**Early Retirement Incentive
-The district is planning on upping the early retirement incentive. The current plan is an idea and not in stone but here is the general idea.
GUESSTIMATE: The district would grant you at 25 years of service (and those currently over be grandfathered in) an incentive of say, $25,000. If you take it right
at 25 years you get the full amount. The amount would be in full if you take it as cash. If you want to contribute it to your retirement, the district has to match it
so you would only get $12,500 and they would match $12,500 to be put into your retirement. Another option would be to possibly take the amount as insurance.
The catch is that if you wait another year, your incentive amount drops dramatically and continues to do so each year thereafter.
-Mr. Mepham would like to have a set proposal by next board meeting so that potential retirees could decide by the end of January to take the deal or not.
-The hope is that this would be an incentive for years to come and not just a one time thing.
-The number of people able to claim the incentive may be limited to say, 3, but may include others this year as a one time thing so that the higher paying salaries
could be reduced.