LINN  —  At their May 16 board meeting, Linn R-2 board members voted to increase the minimum base salary from $35,300 to $37,000 per year for both certified and classified salaries after considering budget figures for either a $1,000 or $2,000 bump.

“I’m kind of at a point where you’re not going to get anybody for less than $20 an hour anymore,” said Board President Shawn Strong.

“It’s very difficult to,” Superintendent Bob James agreed, “especially if we’re going to get them to move here for that.”

Board members questioned future changes in funding and the budget, but all felt that raising teacher salaries was a priority.

“I don’t think there’s anything that will get us our bang for our buck, as far as teacher satisfaction, as much as adding to their salary,” said James. “I think we’re going to be safe, but if we’re going to take a risk at all, the place to take a risk in this environment is with your staff salaries.”

“But we’re not risking insolvency from a financial standpoint. We’re really risking how tight do we want our budget for next year to be and how few decisions do we want to be able to make with that?”

“I say let’s give them a little more money,” said Dr. Strong.

In other business, Joe Kinder from Stifel Financial appeared via Zoom to discuss the pending bond resolution. They are working on getting the district’s credit rating. The board approved the bond resolution authorizing Stifel to act on the district’s behalf regarding the sale of bonds totaling $9,500,000. The entire 39-page resolution is available from the district upon request.

• Superintendent James presented the preliminary budget.

“We have a lot of moving parts this year with 727 coming in (and) the SAT changing,” James said of the State Adequacy Target. 

He noted that the district is serving a couple hundred more meals a month, but the state reimbursement rate this year was 48 cents per full-priced meal, compared to 85 cents last year.

Teacher salary reimbursement grants are expected as well, to meet the minimum salary requirements.

“I tried to be conservative in terms of revenues and overestimate in terms of expenditures,” James said. “A couple of things I want to be clear about: I do very strongly believe our SAT will be fully funded, that Prop C is going to have a decent increase, transportation will be fully funded, and then I got pretty accurate numbers from DESE (the Department of Elementary and Secondary Education) for our weighted ADA (average daily attendance), and so I’ve based our entire budget on those facts.

“But I also want to bring up this,” James continued. “We are paid (based) on our ADA for the best of three years. So, right now, we have last year to lean on at 602. This year is 572, so we’ll lean on 602 next year, and we’ll lean on 602 the year after, but in the third year, if we don’t see a significant rebound to our ADA, we would drop to the best of three years.”

The board elected not to have a budget workshop this year, as they ended the year very close to their projections, without money left over to spend; however, James offered to go through the budget one-on-one with any board members who expressed interest.

James asked the board for their position on non-traditional (home-schooled) students participating in sports, as SB 727 may change the definition of home-school participation.

“In our current policy, we do not allow for home-school participation,” James said, adding the current policy allows the district to elect to enable non-traditional students to participate, providing they meet certain requirements, including at least some sort of high school enrollment.

“The reason I would like to have a conversation about it is that we are going to be asked at some point what our position is as a school district with non-traditional or home-schooled students participating, and I would just like to know what your thoughts are as a group so that I can represent them well,” James said.

Dr. Strong expressed concerns about the potential cost of allowing non-traditional students to participate if the district does not receive funding for them and the school cannot charge them to play.

VP Mark Baker expressed concern that home-schooling may be used as a way to circumvent academic requirements to participate.

“I know that there are really good home-school parents and families,” Baker said, “but I don’t want it to be a method to circumvent standards so that they can play an activity.”

James said that was his greatest concern as well. “To me,” he said, “I want to honor the effort of our students who show up every day and those standards by making sure that anyone who has access to those same programs meets the same standards, and I don’t think there’s an adequate mechanism for quality control.”

Board members did not elect to make any changes to the current policy at this time.

• The August board meeting will move to Aug. 13 to avoid conflicting with the open house on the 15th.

Summer hours for the central office will be 7:30 a.m. - 4 p.m., Tuesday through Friday, starting June 25.

• Elementary Principal Cammie Higgenbotham reported that the current elementary enrollment is 277 students. Enrollment fluctuated from approximately 273 to 280 throughout the year. After piloting several options, teachers elected to move forward with I-Ready.

• During his report, Facilities Director Cliff Wilson said repair of the field house exhaust fan will have to wait until mid-June as parts are on backorder. He is also working to submit the lead-testing reimbursement with DHSS and plans to submit it by the end of the month. 

• James said staffing looks good for the coming school year. However, they are still recruiting for a few positions, such as ELA and Business. Improvements to the track were scheduled to begin on May 28.

• The next regular school board meeting will be on June 20 at 6:30 p.m.