Medford board puts more money toward maintenance

The Medford Area Public School District will put more money toward addressing ongoing building and facility maintenance needs.

Medford school finance director Audra Brooks reported at Monday’s school board meeting that the district has $362,000 currently unallocated in its coming year budget. Brooks noted there were several areas where the school district could address needs with the funds.

She proposed allocating $144,492 of the funds to increase the budget areas for utilities and property insurance related to the building expansion project at the high school. In addition, she asked for additional money be put in the budget for the state-mandated change district’s match with the Wisconsin Retirement System.

She also presented a list of potential building maintenance projects where the money could be spent, and explained that these were projects that were on the maintenance list but were not completed because the maintenance department ran out of funds in their budget for the year. She said it would be good to address them rather than “kicking the can” to future years.

However, board president Dave Fleegel suggested that rather than committing the funds to specific projects at that meeting, it would be better to hold off and see what the district’s potential needs would be for the building projects that are underway in the district.

It was noted that in addition to the unallocated budget funds, the district could also shift the roughly $140,000 budgeted to go into the Other Post Employment Benefit (OPEB) trust fund and use those for maintenance projects since the OPEB study showed the district was close to the maximum funding it could put into the trust. OPEB pays for postretirement benefits for qualifying district staff members.

Brooks noted the district could also put more funds into Fund 46 to earmark for future projects. She gave the example of increasing the amount that is being set aside each year for the eventual replacement of the turf on Raider Field. Currently the district is setting aside $15,000 for that replacement, replacement cost is estimated at $245,000.

In the end, board members decided to allocated the $144,492 and hold off for a month or two in determining how to spend the rest giving time for the high school expansion project bids to come in and to see if additional funds will need to go toward that work.

In other business, board members:

• Approved renewing the CD for Fund 46 capital maintenance project account, for another 6 months and to add more money to it that will be used for the referendum project. The district generated about $10,000 in interest income from the CD that is coming due and approved bringing it up to $2,210,143.44 to be renewed for 6 months at 4.25%.

• Gave the go-ahead for changing the March school board meeting from March 23 to March 30 so that it does not conflict with the National Honor Society and Academic Hall of Fame induction ceremony that is set for that night. High School principal Jill Lybert said it was important that board members be able to attend that event.

• Approved insurance proposals as presented for property, general liability, crime, automobile, educational legal, cyber and umbrella policies with a total cost $274,616 up from $269,873 spent last year, about a 1.7% increase.

• Received an update on the ongoing construction work. Bid opening for the major work at the high school were delayed as contractors had a number of questions. They are expected to be opened and awarded this week with groundbreaking on the high school project scheduled to take place on September 5 during the school day.

• Adam Schwartz reported that flooring tiles containing asbestos have been removed from 21 rooms in the high school with about 10 to 12 rooms remaining. These include science classrooms. The floors will remain as concrete through the referendum project. He said the flooring in the remaining rooms is scheduled to be removed over spring break this school year.

• Received an update on the conversion of the policies for the district to those from Neola, the firm hired by the school to assist with policy development. The district voted earlier this year to go with the policy service to ensure policies were uniform with state and federal requirements and would better be able to meet potential legal challenge. District administrator Laura Lundy said she is currently working with the company on an administrative review of each section of policy which involved looking at different policy language and comparing it to what Medford currently has to match what has been approved in the past by the board. The policies will then go to the policy committee and be brought to the full board for approval.