The Wayland Board o
f Education will have a final vote April 20 on how to spend the anticipated $1.5 million in funds from the Gun Lake Casino over the next fiscal year.
The board agreed in a work session March 23 to use funds for a variety of services and projects, including building a new baseball field at the middle school to comply with Title IX requirements, the next installment of $292,000 for the science wing addition at the high school and it appears ready to approve about $250,000 for a new four-year program to buy new iPad tablets for all students in grades 7-12 and use the older models in K-6 classooms.
The school district already offers iPads free to all students in grades 7-12. The older units will become available for elementary children, grades K-6, and new tablets will be purchased for secondary students.
The board, which had a special meeting Monday evening, March 30, apparently also is poised to spend about $120,000 on new bus purchases.
None of these expenditures will come out of the district’s annual general fund budget.
One minor change in prioritizing casino spending will be in reduction of fund-raising. The process will continue for parent-teacher groups with academic affiliations, but door-to-door soliciting by students is considered something to be avoided altogether.
Superintendent Norman Taylor said the spending priorities must be identified by April 20, a meeting that will be delayed a week because of spring break.
“We need some general direction by April 20,” he told board members. “And even that is behind our normal time line.”
Taylor said the budget is looking a lot better than the gloom and doom predicted last January. He said that three months ago administrators were working under the assumption the school district would be faced with as much as nearly a million dollar deficit. However, that figure has been reduced to $134,645.
The superintendent said, “We’re guardedly optimistic” about state aid funding for the next fiscal year, but not all of the three budget proposals, from Gov. Rick Snyder, the State House and State Senate, have been announced.
Taylor said, “The House package is the most lucrative” and he expects the Senate’s to be somewhere between Snyder’s less generous amount and the House’s.
He said it’s possible the district will be able to ease the deficit and reduce the need for cuts.”
Another wild card is Proposal 1, which promises to add $200 in state aid for schools, besides being targeted to fixing Michigan’s roads.
Though he acknowledged he cannot oppose or endorse the ballot proposal in the May 5 election, he commented, “This isn’t the best proposal, but it’s a compromise between the House and Senate and between Republicans and Democrats… The roads need to be fixed.”
Taylor said the outcome of Proposal 1 has not been budgeted into the school district’s plans in case it fails in the special election.
