Jasper Schools: Budget approved, enrollment down

The Greater Jasper School Board of Trustees passed their 2017 budget during Monday night’s meeting.

Superintendent Dr. Tracey Lorey reported that as was the case with most school corporations in the area, Jasper enrollment is down about 28 students from the level administrators estimated in May when they began the budgeting process for 2017.

“Of course, when you lose student enrollment, you do see a drop in revenue because the money follows the child,” she said.

Lorey says the key to the budgeting process is to estimate revenues to be low and expenditures to be high as a hedge against a major financial challenge. “We feel confident that we can weather that drop and continue to move forward with no issues,” she said.

Ireland Elementary

During the building updates, Clerk of the Works Scott Stenftenagel discussed the potential expansion of the Ireland Elementary cafeteria. The existing one can handle only 135 students and they would like to increase its size to be able to handle over 300 students at one time.

Gibraltar Designs will be asked to keep the footprint basically the same and in the same location. The goal being to add the necessary space and some new equipment for less than $2 million. Steftenagel said that he wants to obtain bids in January with construction to get started in the spring of 2017.

Also during the meeting:

• Curriculum Director Todd Hitchcock asked the board to give formal approval for the high school alternative program. The approval was necessary for the Department of Education to reimburse the school system for the program. The board passed the approval.
• Dr. Lorey obtained permission from the board to declare a 1982 charter bus surplus equipment to be disposed of since it needs parts for a failed exhaust system which can no longer be obtained. The bus has several issues which cannot be fixed,she reported.