Marion County R-II board approves $2.895 million budget

PROTECTED CONTENT

If you’re a current subscriber, log in below. If you would like to subscribe, please click the subscribe tab above.

Username

Password

Login

Lost your password?

Username and Password Help

Please enter your email and we will send your username and password to you.

Email

Submit

← Back

Non-certified staff will see an increase in salary at Marion County R-II School, following approval of the 2023-24 school year budget.

The Marion County R-II Board of Education approved the $2,895,640 budget during their meeting June 14. That budget includes $2,844,209 in expenditures.

Also during the meeting, the board approved lunch prices and several new policies.

The minimum wage for non-certified staff will be raised to bring everyone to $15 an hour, according to Superintendent Jason Keilholz.

“The listed revenue numbers are based off of lasts year’s assessed valuation numbers, as we have not received new numbers from the county,” said Keilholz of the budget. “If there is an increase in assessed valuation, we will amend the budget to reflect those increases.”

In addition to the increase for non-certifed employees, the budget also includes grade and gravel for the lot next to the school for additional parking.

It also includes a 5.5 percent increase in health insurance.

During their board meeting, the board set the elementary lunch prices at $1.95 and the junior high and high school lunch prices at $2.20 for the 2023-24 school year.

The board also approved the professional development plan.

“The Marion County R-II school district’s professional development plan for the 23-24 school year continues to expand opportunities for all district employees to grow professionally,” said Savannah O’Bryan, principal. “For the past three years the district has focused on trauma informed educators and brain development, and will now begin a new district goal for teachers to implement research based strategies that increase student engagement and academic achievement.”

Several new board policies and regulations were approved including:

• Policy 4412 – Active Shooter Training, which is a new policy and suggests staff participate in in-house training related to responding to active shooters training with districts. However, active shooter simulations led by law enforcement are required;

• Regulation 6190 – Virtual Education – Less than Full-Time Equivalent.

While the correct information on due process was introduced in the cover letter, the language did not make it into the policy. The part-time virtual removes the due process requirements and removes the restrictive language that defines “for good cause” reasons;

• Regulation 0320 – School Board Election. The revisions made to Regulation 0320 comply with the August 2021 update of Policy 0320 shortening the time a candidate may file for the board; and

• Policy 4130 – staff contracts. The update changes PSRS requirement for participation from four hours per day to 17 hours per week.