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About Heppner gazette-times. (Heppner, Or.) 1925-current | View Entire Issue (June 16, 2010)
Morrow County School District escapes staff, program cuts B essie W etzell N ew sp ap er Librarv University o f O regon ^ E ugene, OR 97403 By April Sykes M orrow C ounty School District Superinten dent Mark Burrow s told the board at their regular meet ing in Lexington Monday night that there will be no staffing or program cuts for the upcoming year, in HEPPNER imes VOL. 129 NO. 24 10 Pages Wednesday, June 16,2010 Morrow County, Heppner, Oregon City of Heppner launches new web site The City of Hep pner has a new web site at www.cityofheppner.com. “As an experiment (and a cost savings for our citizens) we are going to begin posting more things at the web site rather than pay for paper, postage and labor,” said City Manager Dave DeMayo. DeMayo said the city quarterly news letter for spring of 2010 will be placed on the web '■jte before the end of June. He said the city will only mail the newsletter by nor mal mail if requested by a citizen. DeMayo also asked people to provide the city with comments after they have used the web site. “We would like to do more things on the web in the fu ture if this proves useful to our citizens. We know that we are willing to accommo- not everyone feels comfort- date this need if you let us able using a computer, and know,” DeMayo added. “Welly Toss” incorporated into Celebrate Heppner event The “Welly Toss” competition was held during this year’s Celebrate Heppner event. In addition to the individual com petitions, team competition was also held. See Page FIVE for complete results. -Photo by David Sykes Heppner co-gen plant may burn sorghum to produce electricity Ceres President Richard Hamilton, a self-proclaimed “recovering molecular biologist” who stands at 6-foot-6, is dwarfed by his company’s fast-growing high biomass sorghum. Ceres applies the knowledge gleaned from research on the human genome to plants, making large- scale production of biofuels possible while minimizing impact on food supply. Editor’s note: The above pic ture and caption were taken from the Ceres Company web site. The California based company produces high bio mass sorghum seed o f the kind that might end up being used to grow fuel for the former Kinzua co-generation electric plant located near Heppner. By David Sykes The co-generation plant at the former Kinzua mill site may end up burn ing high biomass sorghum to produce electricity, the Heppner City Council was told Monday night. Kurt Christensen, president o f Renewable Ag Energy, Inc., told the council his company is in terested in assisting a grow ers’ co-op in purchasing the co-gen plant from the Port of Morrow and operating it using the sorghum. He said the sorghum would most likely be grown in the Hermiston area, but that he had contacted a couple of local growers to see if they might be interested. Christensen is from the Treasure Valley area of Oregon and is working on a similar project there. He asked the council for its support and indicated he has a 90-day option to purchase the 10-megawatt facility. C hristensen said he had also met with David Mitchell, a former operator at the plant, to learn all he can about its condition and operation. Christensen said he has some concerns about the condition of the boiler, but feels there aren’t any problems that cannot be overcome. “We have 90 days to do our due diligence and then if everything looks good we will move forward with the purchase and hope fully be operating in the fourth quarter of this year or the first of next year,” he said. He said, when op erational, the plant should employ three people per shift with one supervisor position. The plant will run 24 hours per day and with trucker jobs probably have 20 people employed. He did not say how much the jobs would pay, but that they would be “above average.” C hristensen said the Port of Morrow is of fering them a good deal on the plant, and it also included the planner build ing which he has plans for but did not divulge what they were. Christensen also -See CO-GEN PLANT/Page SIX sharp contrast to many school districts which have been forced to make dras tic budget cuts. “I’m not asking the board to make any draconian cuts,” said Burrows, who qualified his statement by saying “unless the governor” cuts the state education budget further. He said that the district has a higher than normal cash carryover that it can rely on and has not spent the federal stimulus monies it received. He also credited patron support through the local option tax approved earlier. “Every month I thank the patrons,” said Burrows. Burrows told the board that the district was not cutting its budget in the event that more money became available, through the state or federal govern ment. While the district is not cutting programs, nor losing staff, it is, however, taking some cost-cutting m easures. Burrows said that an English language learner teaching position they hoped to fill will not be funded, new cars to replace older models will not be purchased, some textbooks will be adopted, but not pur chased, and $90,000 will be cut out of the maintenance budget. He also said that the district will reduce its con tingency by almost a quar ter of a million dollars. He told the board that the district has joined a consortium which will give the district a zero percent interest on the Riverside High School HVAC (heat- ing/ventilating/air condi tioning) project, which will also^save the district money. The project com pletion date is set for the end of August. Also at the meet ing, the board approved a one-year contract with the Morrow County Education Association (the teachers’ union) which provided for no salary increases, with the exception of step-raises, which kick in when an em ployee has been with the district a certain number of years or when the em ployee completes a speci fied amount of additional education. The contract with the teachers was modified to include an insurance opt- out for the employees. Ac cording to the agreement, “active em ployees who maintain and provide proof of another medical benefit plan may opt-out of district- sponsored health insurance coverage. Employees who opt out o f health insur ance coverage and who are otherwise eligible for a dis trict contribution towards insurance premiums may received 50 percent of the employee’s maximum dis trict insurance contribution as a contribution toward a district-sponsored health re imbursement arrangement, as long as such contribution would not create disadvan tageous tax consequences for the district or the em ployee.” The district cur rently pays $982 per teacher for insurance. If an em ployee opts out of the dis trict insurance plan, $491 will go monthly into an insurance pool and will be divided among the re maining active employees enrolled in OEBB plans. Opt-out decisions must be made at annual enrollment and the pool will be based upon opt-outs at annual enrollment. T he a g re e m e n t specifies that eligible em ployees who don’t maintain and provide proof annu ally of another employer- sponsored group medical plan will not be permitted to opt out of the district- sponsored group insurance coverage. Burrows said that the plan would create no extra expense on the district’s behalf. Other aspects of the one-year successor agree ment between the school district and the teachers include the following: •Employees’ per sonal life: “The personal life of an employee is not the appropriate concern of the board unless it can be shown to be im pair ing the effectiveness of the employee in his or her work assignments. (Update is as follows) ’’Employ ees do recognize than' an Oregon licensed teacher must meet the standards o f Teacher Standards & Practices Commission and OAR 584-20-0000-0035- the Competent and Ethical Educator.” •Employee hours: R egular building hours for teachers shall be 8-1/2 hours for the four-day stu dent week and 7-1/2 hours for the five-day student week. On the last student day of the week and the day preceding a school vacation period, teachers may leave one-quarter hour after dis missal of students. Teachers shall request permission from their adm inistrator or when deviation from these hours is necessary. “Modification to the work day for PLCs or similar workgroups may be made at the building level by a two-thirds majority vote of teachers.” •School calendar and school work year: “It is understood that teacher presence is highly valued at student/parent activities. Teachers’ participation in their building’s student/ parent events is strongly encouraged.” •Professional and educational development- tu itio n reim bursem ent: “The employee may submit for tuition reimbursement prior to receiving a tran script, but must do this on or before May 15.” In other business, the board: -learned from Bur rows that the administrators requested an audience w ith the board concerning their contract. He added that he believed that the adminis trators’ proposal was budget neutral. -discussed the first reading of a policy con cerning non-resident status students with regard to admission, tuition and at tendance. Burrow s said that the new policy would al low him to make decisions about student variances w ithout having to refer each instance to the board. Board member Craig Miles voiced some objections to the proposed policy. “I hate seeing a governmental agency like us taking over parental rights,” he said. “The family should have more right to decide w here their child goes to school.” Board member Bill Kuhn, w ho sought changes to the current policy and prov ided input to the proposed policy, said he thought the variance policy should be defined to a greater extent. -approved the fol lowing employment action: resignations/retirements- Judy Brown, A.C. Hough ton Elem entary School third grade teacher, Chris tina Bettesworth, River side High School ed as sistant. Kristen Caldwell, RHS middle school lan guage arts, Michael Cates, Windy River Elementary/ Sam Boardman Elemen tary PE; employ ment-Leah Thompson, SBE teacher, increasing from half-time to full-time, replacing Alison Ogden. -approved the fol lowing extra-duty (non coaching) positions: Hepp ner Elementary School-Tal ented and Gifted program coordinator-Jannie Allen and Pam Dowdy; DART- K aren S m ith -G riffith , English Language Learn er site coordinator-Mary Ann Elguezabal; Heppner High School-annual-va cant; half-time band -Joe Lindsay; half-time rally advisor-V irginia Grant; drama (one-play onlv)-Jodi Chapa; Talented and Gifted and DART-John Flaherty. -approved the fol lowing extra-duty coach ing contracts; H eppner Junior High: head foot ball coach-Chad Doherty, assistant football coach- Dennis Peck, head vol leyball coach-Mindy Wil son, assistant volleyball coach-Madison Rosenbalm, head boys’ basketball-Mike Ehrsam, assistant boys’ basketball-vacant, Head g irls ’ basketball-M indy Wilson, assistant girls’ bas ketball-Anna Conklin; head wrestling-Ken Bailey, head track-Stefanie Sweeney, as sistant track-Larry Palmer; Heppner High School-ath letic director, head football coach, head golf coach- Greg Grant, assistant foot- ball-Les Payne, assistant football-Kevin Payne, head volley ball-Pam Dowdy, as sistant vollevball-vacant, head b o y s’ basketball- David Norton, assistant boys’ basketball-vacant, head girls' basketball-Mark Dowdy, assistant girls’ bas- ketball-Chris Rauch, head wrestling-Mark Lemmon, head baseball-Jim Kindle, assistant baseball-Scott Coe, head track-M elissa Coiner, assistant track-Ja- son Palmer, head softball- Petra Payne. -approved desig nating the following or ganization details: super- intendent/clerk/custodian o f funds/check facsimile signature/budget officer/ designee to apply and sign on grants and contracts/set fidelity bonds at $75,000 -Mark Burrows; assistant superintendent/special id coordinator/designee to ap ply and sign on grants and contracts-Phyllis Dan ie Ison ; ELL director-Joe Chavez; deputy clerk/business man- ager/custodian of funds fac simile signaturedesignee to apply and sign on grants and contracts/set fidelity bonds at $75,000-Rhonda -See SCHOOL DISTRICT/ Page FIVE AT MCGG GREEN FEED & SEED IN HEPPNER: Father's Day piece crescent tool set $49.99 o j t f g g w S opctldt^. n p m k l I r 13MWZ o M 2 9 aL 5hP ShoP VAC $ 4 9 '99 Cowboy cut jeans $19.99 A ll other men s W rangler C lothing 15% OFF Morrow County Grain Growers Green Feed & Seed 242 W. 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