School Board approves audit of $57 million funds for 2014-15 year

At Monday’s meeting, the Van Buren Public Schools Board of Education approved the financial audit of some $57 million for the 2014-15 fiscal year, ending June 30.
The audit had to be sent to the state by Nov. 1 so the district could get its state aid, so it has already been submitted.
A representative of Taylor & Morgan, P.C., gave the “unmodified audit” report.
He said the student enrollment for 2014-15 was 5,030 and the state aid for each of those students was $7,422.
He said the district was able to add to the fund balance again this year and as of June it was $8,089,543, 17.9% of the budget. He said the state average for 2014 was 9.45%.
He said as of June 30, the district had $8 million due to it in state aid, so the fund balance was good so there would be funds on hand until the state aid came.
The food service department, which keeps decreasing in income, has a half million dollar fund balance, he said.
Expenditures for the athletic department were $500,000, with $350,000 from the general fund and $150,000 raised on its own.
He discussed economic considerations such as the state’s retirement rate, pensions, and GASB-68, which “adds district’s share of the MPSERs unfunded pension liability to the government-wide statements.”
He said Van Buren’s calculated portion of unfunded liability for the pensions is $62,185,620.
In other business at Monday’s meeting, the school board;
• Approved the ERATE grant to update internal connections and wireless technology infrastructure. “This will provide redundancy to our exisiting wireless environment when outages occur for all buildings district wide and add additional wireless capabilities to our elementary schools,” Curriculum Director Jeff Moore said in a memo to the board. The district will be responsible for 20% of the project cost. The project cost for the base bid is $84,811 and the district’s share is $16,802. School Supt. Michael Van Tassel said it was “a pleasant surprise” to get the grant;
• Approved the resignation of Stephanie Karlinksi from non-instructional duties at Tyler Elementary after 7 years as of Nov. 6 because she is relocating;
• Approved the hiring of two building secretaries: Felicia Mahdi at Owen Intermediate as of Nov. 2 and Ursula L. Wester at Tyler Elementary as of Nov. 5;
• Approved the termination of McBride counselor Slavica Vidojevski after three years of service as of Sept. 25 because she is leaving counseling;
• Approved the BHS field trip to Europe for 2017 for 32 students grades 10th through 12th. The trip is to Spain, France, Monaco, and Italy. Cost to student will be $3,873. They plan to leave March 30, 2017 and return April 8, 2017;
• Approved Owen sixth-grade camp for Nov. 16-20 to YMCA Camp Copneconic in Fenton. There will be about 225 students, including counselors from the 10th, 11th, and 12th grades. Cost to student is $230;
• Approved the Jazz Band’s Feb. 5-6 trip to Central Michigan University to perform and receive comments from jazz adjudicators along with hearing other high school, college, and professional jazz groups. Cost to student $125-$150;
• Heard a presentation from Tyler Principal Aleisa Pitt on a variety of curriculum projects at the school;
• Heard Moore discuss plans for a social studies curriculum that would be introduced in the second semester and implemented next year;
• Heard School Supt. Michael Van Tassel’s monthly report that included a thank you to the committee that worked on the millage that passed. He said it will bring in $700,000 less over seven years and that extra will have to come out of general fund. He turned over part of his report to Moore to give an update on teacher evaluations. Van Tassel then reported on cabinet conversations, listing the discussions for the month of November;
• Heard parent Maria Smith say she was concerned about the fifth graders at Owen, where her son is a student. She said she is an educator in higher education and would be glad to help, if she could. The problem is her son was shifted from one class to another. One teacher was hired and didn’t show up. Then another teacher was there and the class was out of control and there was an altercation and then that teacher no longer was there. She asked what the board was going to do to help get stability to the classes. She was told Moore would talk to her after the meeting and he did;
• Voted to move the Dec. 14 to Dec. 7 instead and cancel the Dec. 21 work/study session; and
• Learned next Monday’s meeting would be a special meeting instead of a work/study so they could approve an amended budget. There also will be discussions on K-12 math standards and student support.