There was a better turnout from the public Thursday evening at the Wayland Board of Education’s second forum on spending funds from the Gun Lake Casino.
No one showed at the first hearing last month, but this time more than a dozen citizens were in attendance, mostly to ask questions and make a few comments.
Finance Director Bill Melching reported that last year’s total casino funding pot was composed of three main funding categories — the public improvement fund ($675,000, or 46%), community support ($389.047, or 27%) and instructional support ($397,400, or 27%).
The board consistently over the five years since the casino opened, has resisted spending any of the money on any budget items in the general fund.
The funding support customarily amounts to about $1.5 million a year but school officials said the casino has had a pretty good year and an increase may be in the works.
Questions about how the casino funds are spent included the iPad program in the instructional support category, which shows an annual cost of $168,000. The board voted a year ago to pay that amount to enable all students in grades 7-12 have the computer tablets and allow children in the younger grades have the used units already paid for in previous years.
Tim Rose, who also is a member of the Wayland City Council, said he questions the need for iPads, noting his children don’t use them any more. He also was critical about the restrictions for the tablets.
Teresa Fulk, director of instruction, said blockage of some Internet sites is necessary, but added that a new filtering program “is more user friendly than before.”
Matt Miner said too many area residents have no or poor Internet access, so the iPads aren’t helping them at home. He said particularly bad areas are around Selkirk Lake and Orchard Hills Golf Course. He estimated that as many as 25 percent of students can’t get on the Internet.
Fulk said technology director Scott Vetter is working to try to have as many Hopkins and Wayland students as possible to have decent Internet access.
There was some discussion about the elimination of the annual sixth-grader’ trip to the Museum of Natural History and Shedd’s Aquarium in Chicago. Melching and Supt. Norm Taylor said that particular trip has been getting too expensive and alternatives have been under consideration.
The amount of casino money set aside for field trips has been reduced.
Rose also asked if the school board could reinstate free admission to athletic events for local adults.
Taylor said officials have noticed too many people living outside the district taking advantage of the offer, but students still get in free.
Miner also asked about the new public safety director, Matt Miller, who replaces the retiring Harry Werkema, inquiring why the schools didn’t follow through with its original plan to hire a city police officer. Taylor said that arrangement was found to be too expensive by about $15,000.
Perhaps the elephant in the room was the high school pool, which recently has been closed repairs again, this time because of a boiler problem in heating the water. Some asked why the board didn’t spend casino money on a new pool rather than on the new science wing at the high school.
Taylor responded by noting, “The minimum cost for a new, but basic pool would be between eight and nine millions dollars.”
The science wing cost has been $3 million over a period of 10 years in loan replayment.
Cindy Mathis, former local business owner in the city, said, “When I add up the numbers (in the casino spending budget), I see that of $1.4 million only $5,000 went to scholarships. I’d love to see us put more money into that.”
School officials said they would too, but that means money is invested in someone leaving the district while they’d like funding support to stay in Wayland.
Board Trustee Nancy Thelen said, “I really appreciate how this money is allocated. I think it’s a good fit.”
Four of her colleagues seemed to agree Thursday evening and it appears there will be few, if any changes in how casino funds will be spent next year.