Teacher Appreciation Week!
I want to give a shout out to our teachers during Teacher Appreciation Week, though they deserve it every day of the school year. Our teachers work hard to help every child be successful. It takes a lot of time which is evident as it's not unusual to see teachers here before school, after school, and on weekends making sure everything is just right so their students have the best chance for success. If you see a teacher, be sure to say Thanks for all they do.
It is teacher appreciation week, but I would be remiss if I didn't mention our other staff members. All of our staff members do a great job to provide great things for our students. From our food service staff who have been adding options and working with the kids to find what they like and want to eat, to our teacher associates who work with our students to provide that extra support to get them through the day, to our office staff who greet everyone who come to our buildings and make it a friendlier place, to our bus drivers who get our kids to and from school and to and from their activities even when the roads or the weather aren't the best, our school nurse who handles all the illness and medical concerns of our students and sometimes staff, and finally to our custodians who keep our facilities looking great and fill in for bus driving and anything else that needs done when called. Thanks to all of our staff for everything they do to make our district great. I appreciate it.
Building Update
Progress continues with the building project. We had a delay in the cafeteria area because of the local fire inspector, but that has been worked out. The State Fire Marshal's office had okayed the plans, but when construction started the local inspector came in and said he wanted something different. They've worked out that issue, so they have been back to working in that area. I suspect they will be pouring that floor and have it completely enclosed within the next week or so. Here are a few pictures of progress so far.
Ceiling grid and cabinetry is being installed in the upper floor.
Marker board and cabinets in a classroom space.
The gym ceiling is painted and basketball hoops are installed.
They're installing student lockers as well.
The front entrance is coming along nicely.
The north end of the new cafeteria. Lot's of natural lighting.
Ambulance Thoughts
I attended the Chickasaw Ambulance Council meeting on Tuesday night. As a school district with over 1,000 students in attendance on a typical day, student safety is always on our mind. Unfortunately, there are times when an ambulance is needed and it's always been good to know when the time comes we have a service close by. In addition, they are here on standby for our football games and other times to help with the education of our students. After attending the meeting Tuesday night, I would say the one consensus of the group is we need an ambulance service. Before I go any further, I want to say thanks for the Ambulance Council for working to find a workable solution. I also want to say thanks to the Chickasaw Ambulance service for providing a valuable service to the school and community. When we've called they always come. I'm not here to say if the proposal that's out there is good or bad, I really don't know, but here are the facts as I see them. 1) We have only one proposal that involves a payment of $365,000 per year. 2) MeryOne is not interested because they would need more money than this to operate. A couple of questions that are out there is how do we pay for this and how much will it cost each of us?
After doing some research, it appears the most practical way to pay for this is for the supervisors to put a referendum before the county voters to see if Emergency Medical Services should be an essential service in Chickasaw County and provide a tax to pay for it. Iowa Code allows Property Tax or a combination of property tax and Income Surtax to pay for this. The amount of income surtax appears to be limited to just 1%. In addition, the vote would have to be held every 5 years to continue the tax. If we use the $365,000 of the current proposal, that would cost just under forty-five cents ($.044712) per thousand dollars of assessed valuation. If we combined it with a 1% income surtax, that would reduce the levy down to just over thirty two cents ($.3226) per thousand dollars of assessed valuation. If we use the .44712 per thousand rate, a person whose house is assessed at $100,000 would see a property tax increase of $24.82 per year. If we also use the 1% income surtax, that would reduce that same house's property tax increase to $18.11 per year.
Is this too expensive? I have no idea, I trying to provide more information to continue to move this conversation forward. The board of supervisors is the entity that would make the final decision on whether this should go before the voters or not. Finally, if this was put on the ballot in November, or really anytime between now and then, the taxes would not be collected until the 2021 fiscal year. So, the cities and county still have to find a source of funding for the next fiscal year.
This is not an easy issue to tackle, but it is certainly an essential one. I encourage you to attend the various meetings to learn more and make sure your voice is heard. We all know the issues, I hope this helps to move toward some solutions.
