Delano Herald Journal

Serving the communities of Delano, Loretto, Montrose, MN, and the surrounding area

HLWW school board to review site choices Oct. 6



A long road travelled by the Howard Lake-Waverly-Winsted
school board may take a critical turn Monday, Oct. 6, when the board is
scheduled to review ­ and then choose, if possible ­ a land site
for the planned new school complex.

The board is set to reveal sites gathered from an independent
Realtor, 7:30 p.m. at the high school media room, and then discuss potential
land sites at that time, said Supt. George Ladd.

Board members also fielded questions last Monday about
the operating levy and building bond set for November.

Resident Bob Schermann pressed the board about the idea
the state would disintegrate the district if the operating referendum didn’t
pass.

The state isn’t going to force the district to disband,
Supt. George Ladd told Schermann.

Schermann was concerned about the state closing the district
down if a new school isn’t built, since he felt a recent HLWW publication
mailed directly to homes stated that idea, he said.

Schermann also asked why the architect drew plans to renovate
and expand that was above 60 percent of the cost of a new building.

“Why the scare tactic? Are you scared of defeat?”
he asked the board.

“The state never indicated that it would shut us down,”
Board Member Charlie Borrell said.

Borrell was not happy that the architect went above the
60 percent limit either, he said.

The architect included everything the district would possibly
need, Ladd said.

Board Members John Lideen and Charles Weber could not find
the passages that Schermann was referring to in the newsletter.

Lideen reread what Bob Buresh from the Minnesota Department
of Education wrote in his letter to the district. “If HLWW can’t come
together, the district should consider dissolution and pair with other districts,”
Lideen read.

“It’s only his opinion,” Lideen said.

“No major additions to the high school and only small
improvements would be allowed at the elementary,” Lideen paraphrased
from Buresh’s letter.

Only about $1.2 million worth of work would be allowed
at each elementary school, Lideen said.

“It has never been said that way and the board never
said that (about dissolution),” Board Member Al Doering said.

“It would be the district’s decision, not the state’s,
to disintegrate,” Ladd added.

After hearing from the board, Schermann was “appreciative
to get it cleared up about the state,” he said.

A resident asked if the board looked at what $2 million
would buy.

“It’s not much, only a few rooms,” Board Chairman
Jim Raymond said.

“What if the district spent more than $1.2 million
at each elementary school?”, the resident asked.

The state wouldn’t allow the district to levy, Ladd said.

“Many schools seem to ask for another operating referendum
before the other is paid for,” a resident commented. “The bigger
you make it (a building), the more you pay for it.”

“Let the voters decide,” Weber said.

The operating levy is the most important aspect, Lideen
said. “We want to educate our students better,” he said.

Levy proposed at 1.02%, reserve is about $1 million

The board approved its proposed 2004 levy for the maximum
level of $330,712, which constitutes a 1.02 percent increase from last year’s
levy.

The reserve that HLWW used to have is now at $1 million,
which is very close to what financial advisors want the district to keep
anyway, Ladd said.

The school should have four months’ worth of reserve, which
is about $800,000, Ladd said.

At its peak, the reserve topped $2 million in the past
under former Supt. Riley Hoheisel, but has been whittled down by several
different factors, including less interest revenue, state funding changes,
and rising costs in energy, insurance and several other factors.

Hoheisel previously forecasted that the district would
need to ask for an operating referendum, and was forced to dip into the
reserve himself in 2002. The reserve has been dipped into each year since.

Another problem for the district is cash flow, since the
state delays payments to the school during the winter to save money, Ladd
said.

This caused the district to cash in investments from the
reserve in the past year to increase money on hand to pay vendors, he said.

Aside from this, the board previously set a limit on how
much reserve to keep last year, setting a limit of 12 percent of its budget
to keep on hand, which is $800,000, Ladd said.

The district will not have to conduct a Truth in Taxation
hearing in December because the levy amount is lower than the amount required
for the hearing, Ladd said.

This is the second year in a row that the hearing wasn’t
required for the district, he added.

Early into the board meeting, Borrell requested that an
item on the agenda, program cuts if the referendum fails, be removed.

He questioned the process of topics being discussed in
committees before the issue is put on the agenda, he said.

Borrell was unhappy about an agenda item listed that hadn’t
gone before the budget committee yet, he said.

“It’s backwards logic,” he said.

Borrell felt that the list of cuts is to force people into
voting for the referendum, he said.

The board wasn’t going to vote on it, Raymond said. It
was only going to discuss the issue, he added.

Weber assumed it wasn’t going to a vote that night either,
he said.

Board Member Jim Fowler agreed with Borrell’s concern.
Fowler wasn’t opposed to discussing the list, but he didn’t want it to be
perceived as a scare tactic, he said.

Doering was surprised to see the list on the agenda, he
said. He thought there was enough money for the next two years before programs
would get cut, he said.

“We have to look at all the possibilities if the referendum
doesn’t pass,” Raymond said.

The list is only suggestions, he added. Ladd agreed.

The board approved to remove the item from the agenda.
It will go before the budget committee and be back on the agenda in October.

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