The Ellsworth Kanopolis Geneseo USD 327 Board of Education approved a $14.6 million budget for the 2023-24 school year.

The district approved a mill levy rate of 51.251, which is less than 1 mill increase from the 2022-23 budget.

Additionally, the board approved a 32 percent supplemental general budget line item.

“Each year we adopt the local option budget,” Superintendent Deena Hilbig said. “We talked about increasing it to 33 percent if we would need to. After doing a lot of studying, we were able to come in a little above where we were last year, not need to go to 33 percent.”

A budget hearing was held before Monday night’s regular meeting.

“When you have more kids, it costs more,” Hilbig said.

Board Clerk Dina Rankin said the budget estimates a little high in case any additional needs arise.

“The budget is an authority number,” she said. “The biggest number is capital outlay. We say we’ll spend $2 million, last year we spent $597,000. Our budget numbers are higher than we actually spend. You add a little to it in case you have the emergency.”

USD 327’s 2022-23 budget was slightly more than $13.9 million, with a mill levy of 50.568.

In other action:

• The board approved several gifts and grants: Because we Care Coalition donated school supplies for attendance centers; $500 from Central Kansas Library System; Sonic provided numerous cases of bottled water for the week of extreme heat and for concessions throughout the school year; $144 from the Parent/Teacher Organization for sixth grade to the state fair; $709.03 towards the purchase of a refrigerator for athletics from Cat’s Pride, Farm Bureau and an anonymous donor; popsicles to EES from Connally Agency; popsicles to KMS from First Bank Kansas; student of the month T-shirts and trinkets from Sonic; $1,798.50 for football ponchos purchased by Cat’s Pride with funds from Pflughoeft Well Services; and rural school career and tech ed grant for $101,962 from the Patterson Family Foundation.

• Approved an out-ofstate field trip request from FFA members. Four members of the local FFA chapter qualified in horse evaluation for the national competition in Billings, Mont. Oct. 14-18.

• Approved updates to several policies. One change allows the superintendent to accept gifts and grants in addition to the school board.

“We had an entity want to buy tickets for everyone for a home football game,” Hilbig said. “There is importance of generous donations. If we could insert ‘superintendent and/or board.’ We can take advantage of opportunities so it’s win/win.”

Other policy updates included emergency safety intervention, student activities, disposal of district property and overnight accommodations.

• Discussed the policy changes surrounding open enrollment, which goes into effect for the 2024-25 school year.

“You have heard me talking about open enrollment, we got a jump start on that,” Hilbig said.

The board previously set capacity for class size in each grade.

“We also need to provide notice and make nonresident applications available by June 1 and do that annually,” Hilbig said. “This year we talked about students in good standing. With this new law, we are not able to do that in the first year. If they are returning students, we can take that into consideration, based on their student not being in good standing.”

With the new statute, additional seats in a district will be filled via a lottery if more students apply than the district has space for.

Hilbig said exceptions are made for students who have a sibling enter via the lottery. The district also chose to make exception for children of staff who teach in the district.

“Some of this is not new to you as a board. What we talked about for the last year is going to become law,” Hilbig said. “The policy does require a hearing first before we can adopt it.”

The hearing will take place during the October meeting.

Board Vice President Gina McGowan said admission rules have changed, but the Kansas State High School Athletic Association still has eligibility rules if students transfer.

“If I send my son to Salina, he’s not playing sports for a year,” she said. “KSHSAA did not change their rules.”

• Approved adding language to permit the superintendent to approve advertising or promotion.

“I would like to seek approval to approve those as superintendent so I don’t have to bring those monthly to meetings,” Hilbig said.

She said surrounding districts give oversight to booster clubs and athletic directors.

“I would like to pursue a conversation with Cat’s Pride as part of a fundraising effort on their part,” Hilbig said. “For those funds to go back to our athletics and activities would be a good way to utilize those extra dollars.”

• Approved the contract negotiations with teachers. Base pay is increased to $42,000, with teachers in grades K-6 receiving additional compensation if more than a third of another teacher’s class is added to their room for the day. New evaluation tools for students, as well as clarification for extra-duty pay and outside-of-duty day pay, were also added. Additionally, FCCLA was added as a club. An additional $250 to $1,000 was added to the penalty staff pay for late resignations.

• Approved retaining Maria Kutina, HTK Architects, to determine the next steps for exterior improvements to EJSHS. Retaining the firm will cost about $37,000.

“We knew we had exterior facing that was failing,” Hilbig said of decorative elements on the roof of the junior/ senior high school. “When we had our roof inspected, they identified the stucco finish was falling off and causing the membrane to fail and causing leaks.

“These are hollow on the inside and would not be as expensive to be removed as we thought. She estimates a base bid of $300,000. She’s just giving an estimate — $300,000 on the high end.”

• Following 25 minutes of executive session, the board approved hiring several positions: Brenda Rathbun and Matt Rodriguez as bus drivers and Claudia Hochman as classified substitute.

• Following a 25-minute executive session, the board approved up to 5 percent salary raises to executive staff.

The next regular board meeting is Oct. 9 at 7 p.m. and will begin at 6:15 p.m. with a tour at USD 327 transportation barn followed by a tour of central storage.