School budget/finance committee discusses walk-through with city officials, updates to accounting software

The Wrangell School District's budget/finance committee held a brief meeting last Wednesday, Aug. 7. One of the topics covered related to infrastructure and capital improvements.

Capital improvement projects, or CIP, have been an ongoing discussion for the school district as of late.

CIPs generally involve improving or renovating existing infrastructure. The Wrangell School District, with their budget season recently coming to a close, has sought city support for various

projects. Back in June, the Wrangell Borough Assembly approved of a $1.3 million contribution to the school district, paid for with Secure Rural Schools funds.

On top of this, they also approved of a $100,000 reimbursement plan for building repair, and also agreed to spend $65,000 on sidewalk renovations on school property.

To get a better idea of what the school district's priorities should be for renovations, the committee discussed the idea of hosting a walk-through with city officials so both parties could discuss what they are hoping to accomplish. Superintendent Debbe Lancaster, who was present at the meeting, said that this sounded like a great idea and said she would like to have that set up as soon as possible.

Another topic covered in the meeting was in regards to Great Plains, the district's accounting software. With the start of a new budget season, and a new school year, the software is undergoing a few updates. The details of the FY 2020 budget are being uploaded to the software, according to Georgianna Buhler, and some minor things in the software are being tweaked and cleaned up. She also said that "position codes" are being implemented for the general ledger. She explained that the software will be able to show more specific information on employee costs based on their position. This means that costs can be broken down between administrators and paraprofessionals, for example, to better identify where money is being spent.

Other items briefly discussed in the meeting included the construction of a new server for the school district, an upcoming audit, and various proposed amendments to finance-related policies. The next full school board meeting will be on Aug. 19.