It took just over 3 hours in perhaps one of the longest Cache County School District (CCSD) board meetings in history the district detailed its financial obligations and future needs. After presenting its case the CCSD made a recommendation for a modest increase to property taxes to enable the district to provide much needed maintenance and upkeep of existing facilities, busses, and more.

The CCSD school board began the Thursday evening meeting hearing about school trustland plans as presented by Jason Stranger. The board was then presented with a request by Sky View Principal Dave Swenson to approve their clubs. Swenson pointed out that 80% of kids at the school are involved in extracurricular activities. Swenson explained that the popularity of the Lacross and Hockey teams is on the rise, as well as non-athletic clubs such as the chess club, appear to be growing in favor with many of the students. New clubs such as an ultimate Frisbee club were also requested for approval in Swenson’s petition to the board.

Scott Rigby presented the idea of a positive revenue stream generating opportunity of entering into a lease agreement with AT&T. The proposal by AT&T is to put up a cellular phone tower on land located just west of the CCSD administrative offices. Items such as the amount of the lease and issues of liability were addressed and the board was asked to consider approving this idea, when a final lease was reviewed and presented to the board at a later date.

The presentation of the CCSD’s success in the literacy and math proficiency programs were presented by Maurine Donovan, Craig Ashton, and Holly Peterson. The results of the districts efforts in these areas have generated very impressive results as the district ranks near the top in nearly every category when compared with all other districts in the state and in comparison to many in the nation. When compared with the nation Utah as a state has much work to do but CCSD has done a very impressive job of improving and developing the programs in these areas. Ashton outlined the costs to produce these programs, provide professional development to those that run the programs, and future needs in the science and social studies area where not much has been done since the Clinton era.

The big money issues were discussed next when Bruce Parker detailed the needs related to building maintenance that includes items such as roof maintenance, asphalt and concrete repairs, and carpet replacement, etc. In many years the largest cost has been in roof repairs and there have been many times when there is a budget deficit for these costs. Parker through utilizing some carry forward funds from previous years has been able to meet these needs, while other areas have had to be neglected. Parker mentioned items such as carpet replacement that has gone nearly three years with little or no attention. Future projects such as maintenance of the new tracks and turf fields at Sky View and Mountain Crest along with maintenance of their tennis courts sufaces, and some much needed maintenance at the Mountain Crest Pool were discussed. Another area that was discussed were the seismic upgrades at many facilities around the valley. The board suggested that Parker move forward finding out the costs to do an in-depth study of the seismic upgrade needs in the district, mentioning some available funds from a bond could fund the study.

As with building needs the aging fleet of busses in the district were mentioned as a concern. With the 6th largest fleet in Utah, and one of the oldest fleets in the state, the district has tried to be very prudent with their funds and have always tried to squeeze as much life out of the busses that they could was the report by Wayne Reese. Reese reported that over half of the fleet has more than 200K miles on them. With great pride Reese mentioned that the CCSD fleet has received the highest safety award from the state known as the “Gold Award” from the State Department of Public Safety in each of the last 16 years. Higher fuel costs and a need to replace busses a few at a time rather than many at one time were the financial needs outlined by Reese.

Alan Gibbons detailed the ever changing world of technology. Gibbons presented the needs that the district has in keeping up with equipment that will handle the software that is sometimes mandated by the state. Supporting new items such as smart phones, iPads, smart classroom devices such as clickers, etc. were among the growing needs in technology.

All of these needs were summed up by Alan Hansen in a description of what the district could do if they were to max out the tax levies at their disposal. Nearly $12 millon per year could be raised if the district were to become more aggressive in their attempts to push tax levies towards the maximum levels allowed by the state legislature. CCSD currently ranks 37 out of 41 districts in the state in what they are collecting in assessed value property taxes per student. In the amount of effort put forth by the district CCSD ranks 23rd out of 41 districts as to how aggressively they are acting to raise funds to meet their needs using property taxes as the vehicle to reach their funding needs. The two closest districts in Logan and Box Elder rank 11th and 9th respectively in their efforts to raise funds via tax levies.

Superintendant Norton then addressed the board after having heard all the needs as detailed by the district administrators that oversee the various areas of responsibility throughout the district. Norton said that the district felt they could meet the needs of textbooks and professional development in the current budget. Norton went on to mention that only 24% of the funding needs of the district are provided by local sources, and that it would be nice to approach the efforts of the neighboring districts in raising funds via the levying of taxes as allowed by the state. With a goal to take the first dollars from the state and invest those funds where they are most needed, the district employees according to Norton. A slight tax increase was proposed that would mean a modest request for the citizens of the valley to make a larger public investment in the district. The request that the district is making for additional funds will first go to busses, and a continued investment in the reading programs of the district. Norton said that he felt that the CCSD is a great district and has been operating with little local efforts to capture available tax revenues. The funds will help maintain the greatest reading program in the state and perhaps one of the top programs in the nation, Norton continued. The district will be able to create a safer fleet of busses to help get the kids to school, and make a much needed investment in the buildings and facilities in the district.

Rather than go for $4-5 million at this time that could more sufficiently fill the gaps the district has in it budgetary needs Norton suggested that the school board approve a tax increase that would raise approximately $1.4 million in revenues. This increase would equate to a very conservative increase of a little over $4 per month on a $200k home, an additional property tax cost of about $48 per year. Norton said that this increase was needed to take care of the most urgent needs, and if these steps weren’t taken it would have some significant negative consequences on the district.

Because of the length of the meeting a few remaining items on the agenda were tabled for a future meeting. The board will need to have the budget of the district solidified by the June 22nd deadline, and a resolution by the board as to the requested tax increases will be voted on in August.

The next board meeting will be held next week on April 22nd at 5:30 p.m. at the CCSD administrative offices. While the bigger budgetary items will most likely not be decided at the next meeting some of the other agenda items will be voted on such as the clubs at Sky View and the cellular tower lease could come up for vote at that meeting if enough work could be done on the lease agreement.