Story originally printed in the Tomah Journal or online at www.tomahjournal.com
Published - Wednesday, May 21, 2008
School board changes meeting time and place
It will be a new time and a new place for Tomah School Board meetings.
Board members decided to move their regular board meetings from 7:30 p.m. to 7 p.m. and hold all but one of them at the new Robert Kupper Learning Center (formerly the Western Technical College Tomah campus) on Townline Road.
The first 7 p.m. meeting will be held July 17 at the Kupper Center. The May 21, 2009, meeting will be held the Tomah High School library. Retiring teachers and support staff are honored at the May meeting.
Only 32 people responded to a survey on the time and place of the meetings, but respondents overwhelming favored the 7 p.m. start time and permanent meeting location. The board had previously rotated meeting dates between school buildings and held special meetings in the school district office. Twenty-eight respondents favored the 7 p.m. start time, and 27 favored holding the meetings at the Kupper Center.
In other business, the board heard a brief budget update and set a special meeting for June 30 to close the books on the 2007-08 budget and hear the initial presentation of the 2008-09 budget.
Business Manager Greg Gaarder said the budget repair bill that passed the state Legislature last week shouldn’t have a substantial impact on next year’s budget. Lawmakers voted to delay $125 million in state aid payments to balance the budget, a provision that’s subject to veto by Gov. Jim Doyle.
“The impact of the delay is hard to put our finger on at this time,” Gaarder said.
He described the delay as a “cash-flow issue” and said it could “possibly force us to do some short-term borrowing.”
Tomah, like most school districts, already takes out short-term loans to cover state aid payments that don’t arrive until late in the fiscal year.
“We’re not getting a cut in state aid,” Superintendent Bob Fasbender said. “We’re just getting it later.”
All stories copyright 2006 Tomah Journal and other attributed sources.