A number of cuts made earlier in staff in the Mount Ayr Community school district were reversed when more money was discovered in the line item budget for the 2010-11 school year.
That was the big news from the district’s school board meeting Monday night, which was the first meeting for new superintendent Joe Drake.
Teacher quality funds had been expensed in two places in the line item budget, it was discovered, allowing a little more leeway in staffing for the coming school year.
The board also discussed policy of the use of school gymnasium facilities, handled several items for the new school year and approved several purchases at the meeting. Other items are covered in separate stories.
Personnel items
Two new positions were opened up -- though they are contingent on numbers of students at registration in early August -- and several positions were restored by action of the school board Monday night.
In addition, there were some resignations accepted by the board as well in a long list of personnel items.
If the numbers of students warrant added elementary positions, openings for a junior kindergarten teacher and second grade teacher will be filled in the district, superintendent Joe Drake noted.
The need for these positions comes with the planned increase to three sections of kindergarten and second grade.
Stacia Nickle, junior kindergarten teacher, will move to the third kindergarten spot, opening up the junior kindergarten position.
Jane Uhlenkamp will go back to being the elementary art teacher, TAG teacher and Title I teacher in the new plan. This will mean that assignments for Aaron Riley and Mary Kay Overholtzer will be changed.
Riley will go back to being the art teacher full time at the secondary level and Overtholtzer will drop the elementary TAG teaching position of her contract and spend her time as science teacher and TAG teacher at the secondary level. She will have a change in contract deleting a little over $6,000 in extra money she was to be paid for not having a prep period.
Aleaha Whittington will have her contract as a media aide extended back to full time for the year from the halftime position that had been offered. Her full time contract will be for $15,382.
Hired as a new employees were Crystal Storhoff as flag coach for the band for $928 and Josh Hanawalt as elementary custodian at $21,487 for the year at the probationary wage of $10.33 an hour. He will not use the $375 a month insurance stipend offered.
Technology director Kurtis Christensen had asked for a reduction in hours and an increase in pay to cover the increase in cost for single medical insurance coverage. The board did not change the hours but did offer Christensen the full single insurance premium.
Donna Shields, who has been secretary for the Mount Ayr Community superintendent and a district employee for 32.5 years retired from the district with a letter accepted at the meeting.
She will stay on to help train her replacement, Deb Yoder, who will have an 11 month contract with the district. Yoder’s contract is for $32,084 plus full single health insurance at the $1,000 deductible level.
The board accepted Shields’ retirement with thanks for her years of service.
The board also approved a 28E agreement for a school-based supervision program reinstating Donna Warin to her three day a week position as court liaison for district students.
Half of her salary is paid for by the juvenile court system to be matched by $13,814 from the Mount Ayr Community school district for her services.
In another personnel related item, the board approved a 28E sharing agreement with the Creston Community school district to share the services of Eric Ehlen as a physical education teacher for the coming school year.
To begin with, Ehlen’s time will be split 50-50 between the two districts. The Mount Ayr Community school district will continue to hold Ehlen’s contract with the Creston district reimbursing the MAC district for its share of salary, benefits and transportation.
Creston may need Ehlen more than half time and adjustments will be made in the contract if this is the case.
Also approved pending finding a suitable replacement was the resignation of Brett Ruggles as assistant girls softball coach. Ruggles said he had enjoyed coaching with coach Josh Vanderflught but needed to spend more time with his family.
Two other contract adjustments were made for the principals in the district, whose salaries have remained frozen.
Lynne Wallace and Ken Harrison will receive the increase in insurance to keep their full family insurance in place at new higher levels. The principals will receive a benefit at the level of a $1,000 deductible family medical insurance or $1,487 a month for the coming school year.
The increase in insurance benefit was the increase in costs for the medical insurance from one year to the next and were offered as partial compensation for added responsibilities the shared superintendent system will bring.
The changes in the budget were possible when it was discovered that some $300,000 of teacher quality funds had been charged in two places in the budget, Drake told the board.
He took the board through the line item budget, showing where the funds would come from to meet the $6,791,846 amount of expenditures authorized for the coming school year.
The board made changes in the line item budget for the coming year that would account for all the changes in staff assignments while still meeting the budget target.
“Our goal is to not go in the hole on the budget this year and then to work at building up the district’s reserves in the future,” Drake told the board.