While not originally on the agenda for the night, the Wrangell School Board discussed the potential future of their contract with Etolin Bus Company during their meeting Monday, Jan. 20. The item was brought up by School Board Member Patty Gilbert, who requested an amendment to the agenda. Etolin Bus Company is contracted by the school district to deliver Wrangell's children to school in the mornings, and take them home again in the evenings. They had a three-year contract with the district, from 2016-2019. However, the contract was given a one-year extension in 2019, according to an article in the Wrangell Sentinel dated June 20 of last year. The current contract with Etolin Bus Company is set to expire at the end of June this year. Renewing the contract was not the topic of the discussion, however, it was about a potential change of ownership.
"I was getting closer to retiring, which I have from Arrowhead, and of an age where we just decided we're not going to continue doing this," Greg McCormack, owner of the bus company, explained. "We're in negotiations with John Taylor and his wife on taking over our school bus business. In the contract language it states that we can't transfer an existing contract to another entity without district approval."
McCormack said that to move forward with negotiations, he requested the board provide a written document stating they are all right with the bus company moving in this direction. Superintendent Debbe Lancaster said that they had sent all this information over to their legal team to make sure everything was happening above board and, after some discussion, the board agreed they would do their best to get back to McCormack with a formal response as soon as possible. Assembly Member Beth Heller clarified for the public that this was not a promise to sign another contract with Etolin Bus Company when the current contract expired or when there was a change of ownership.
"We're just trying to set up things as expediently as possible so that when the trigger's pulled, if he [John Taylor] does get the contract, then things can go bang-bang-bang-bang and we can move about our way," McCormack agreed. "To be honest, we want to take off and go on vacation and this is kind of holding us up."
The school board also got to look at the first draft of the district's budget for FY 2021. For the next school year, revenues are currently set at roughly $5.5 million. A little over $4 million is expected to come in from the state, according to the budget draft, and $617,700 is hoped to be drawn from local sources, as well as $852,000 from federal sources of funding. Expenditures meanwhile are a little less than $6.3 million. The largest costs listed include about $2.7 million under the instruction category, including salaries, employee benefits, and supplies, about $671,000 for administration support services, and about $877,000 for operations and maintenance. In all, the first budget draft leaves the district with a deficit of $446,599.
Lancaster explained that during this budget making process, they had gone to the district's stakeholders to try and get realistic numbers for what they needed to function next year. They were going to have to do their best to close that deficit in future drafts, and she added they would be holding community meetings about the budget in the near future, with a district-wide staff meeting planned for Feb. 3, and a public meeting later that evening.
"What this is doing is this is showing all of our groups of stakeholders about what our needs are, the realistic needs of this district," Lancaster said. "The community has a certain level of expectation of what they want from the district and how they want the district to provide education for their students. They want music, they want art, they want social-emotional counseling, they want activities, not just athletic but academic as well. They have a very fairly high level of expectation and I don't think we need to reduce any of that ... We need to hear what everybody has to say. Then we need to take our input and we need to make some choices."
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