R-1 ends 2019-20 fiscal year with healthy fund balance

By Laura Schiermeier, Staff Writer
Posted 8/19/20

VIENNA — The Maries R-1 School District ended the fiscal year 2019-2020 with a healthy fund balance and school board members commented this is good news since cuts in state funding have greeted …

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R-1 ends 2019-20 fiscal year with healthy fund balance

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VIENNA — The Maries R-1 School District ended the fiscal year 2019-2020 with a healthy fund balance and school board members commented this is good news since cuts in state funding have greeted the new 2020-2021 school year.

At the school board’s July meeting, Superintendent Mark Parker said in the Annual Secretary of the Board Report (ASBR), which contains financial information about the school district, and after the audit, the district’s fund balance was 22.57 percent. This is after about $80,000 in funding cuts from the state due to revenue loss caused by the Covid-19 coronavirus. Parker said the unrestricted fund balance at the end of the fiscal year June 30 was $1,015,065.87 or 22.57 percent. This compares to the previous school year (2018-2019) when the fund balance was 18 percent, primarily caused by spending on several building improvement projects such as the preschool playground, elementary restroom renovations and replacing necessary cafeteria equipment.

Parker told the school board members he was pleased with the fund balance. Board Vice President Penny Schoene commented “Its good. Especially with all this stuff,” meaning the financial hardships caused by the coronavirus.

In other business at the July meeting:

• The board approved reducing the professional development expenditures from the DESE required 1 percent to one-half of one percent for the 2020-21 school year. This year DESE has approved schools limiting the amount of money required to be spent on professional development due to the coronavirus financial hardships.

• Ed Fagre has retired after 36 years of working as an R-1 contracted bus driver. At a special meeting Aug. 11, the board approved hiring John Schulte Jr. for Fagre’s bus route. At the July meeting, Parker said he will audit each bus route and make modifications to make sure the route mileage is correct. 

• The board will meet on Monday, Aug. 24 at 5:45 p.m. to set the tax rate levy. The regular meeting will begin at 6 p.m.

• In the financial report, Parker said July Formula/CTF revenues were $50,224.59, a decrease of $43,000 from the two-year average. In June the state cut 3.6 percent and the July cut was the same. Parker said he hopes these are the only cuts the district has and that the state will refund what was cut later in the school year, but he does not know for sure. The June and July cuts were anticipated and the district was able to absorb the revenue loss.

Prop C revenues in July were $33,956.15, an increase of $3,900 in the two-year average. The district received $6,004 in transportation revenue, a decrease of $825 in the two-year average. He anticipates transportation revenues will be low all year.

The good news is that electricity expenses continue to trend lower than previous year, primarily due to the LED lighting project, which saved the district about $1,200 from the previous year.

• Bill Lekey was at the meeting and wanted to enter his protest about books he thinks are racist and he wanted to ask these books not be part of the school library. The books he’s concerned about are 1619 Project, which internet sources report it is about structural roots of Black disenfranchisement in the US. Also a book White Fragility Lekey also objected to R-1 students reading. Internet source states the book speaks of the US segregated society was to insulate whites from racial discomfort.

Lekey said the school should “teach history” and not about white privilege. He had four boys graduate from Maries R-1 and it’s a good school he said and he does not want his grandchildren learning such things as those books contain.

Board President Vicki Bade said she appreciated him coming to the school board. Maries R-1’s curriculum is DESE approved, she told him, and the books he spoke of are “subjective commentary and we aren’t based on that.”

Parker said those books are not in the R-1 libraries and he doubted if they are in the elementary classroom libraries. He told Lekey the school district is aware of these books and will keep an eye out.