Limit increase from $10,000 will take force after second reading

“I don’t know if it would make things easier,” district superintendent Jeff Koenig said of a proposed increase in the project dollar amount he can personally approve without prior approval by the school board. “It would make them faster,” Koenig shared at the February school board meeting. By the end of the night, the board approved a raise in the limit to what Koenig can personally approve. With the limit now raised to $20,000, perhaps a little backstory might help. Some time back, in summer 2019, cement around the playground on the southeast side of Stanley-Boyd Schools in Stanley needed to be repaired, after someone chose to take their dog on a walk through the freshly poured cement, and leave permanent record, so to speak. In order to do the repair before school started, meanwhile, it needed to get done quick. The only problem? Approving the action as estimated went slightly over the $10,000 limit imposed on district superintendent Jeff Koenig for project approval. No cement sidewalk repairs to blot out footprints, no playground for the kids come school opening, then fast approaching. In the end, Koenig gave the go ahead to a concrete company for the sidewalk repair, and kids were able to go to recess the same week school started, rather than waiting while sidewalk repairs were being made. With the superintendent’s action later noted by the board in its “approval with exceptions” of the relevant district policy under periodic review, the minutes of the board decision were dictated carefully, lest posterity not know the full backstory for the board’s decision as such. “There’s no other way you could have done it,” one board member said at the time of the crunch decision. But if the past was unavoidable, what of the future? To answer that, will require a second reading and enactment, as noted at the February meeting. With a motion by Verbeten seconded by Denise Hoffstatter to approve the increase pending the second reading, it was on to other business. Along with potential improvements like a cafetorium and field house were simple necessities.like a new electrical service at Boyd Elementary, which Koenig filled the board in on at the February school board meeting.

“It wasn’t an expense we were planning at the beginning of the year,” Koenig said of the new electrical service, with motion made by Jeff Boie and seconded by Ryan Lewallen to approve the bid for $21,370 from Hudson Electric, while Verbeten had his own two cents to offer. “Sounds like it’s overdue,” he said of the electrical service upgrade at Boyd Elementary. “Thank you CESA.”

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