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About The independent. (Vernonia, Or.) 1986-current | View Entire Issue (June 6, 2001)
Page 10 The INDEPENDENT, June 6, 2001 anks School Board hears proposed technology requirements Banks School District Board of Directors approved new members of the administrative team and discussed a new high school graduation require ment at their May 14 meeting. Board member Gene Kelly asked Superintendent Marilyn McGlasson to outline the process used to hire new mem bers of the administrative team. Since Elementary Principal Ester Lee has only been with the Banks district for one year, the retirement of junior high Principal Ted Faro and the res ignation of high school Princi pal Jeff Smith could have left the district with novice princi pals at all three schools. In or der to avoid this and insure continuity, Jim Foster, who has been with the district for many years was transferred to the High School Principal’s job. Though often seen by the pub lic as disciplinarian, Foster’s previous role as High School Vice Principal was consider ably broader in scope and both McGlasson and the board felt Foster was well qualified to move into the principal’s job. Candidates for junior high principal and high school vice principal were screened and in terviewed by two different groups composed of staff, ad ministrators and the public. Martin Voge comes to Banks from Scappoose to become principal at the junior high. He was principal at Grant Watts El ementary for three years and has 16 years of teaching expe rience. The new high school vice-principal/athletic director will be Jim Smith. Smith is cur rently an administrative intern with the Hillsboro School Dis trict and head track coach at Glencoe High School. He has 14 years teaching experience. High school principal Jeff Smith opened the discussion about making the new Technol ogy Concepts a graduation re quirement by clarifying when this would be put into effect. The course will be offered next year, for the first time, as an elective. It will be a recom mended elective for all classes until the class of 2005, at which time it is proposed as a re quirement for graduation. No change is proposed in the total number of credits required for graduation (24). Instead, the number of electives would be reduced from eight to seven in order to add the new require ment. Board members expressed concern that students have an opportunity to take electives and were reassured by Smith that the total number of credits possible, varies from 28 to 32, depending on how many class es a student takes per term. The requested change is part of an overall technology plan developed over the last four months by a group of teachers, administrators and community members. Scott Bradley, a committee member with 15 years of technology in dustry experience, told the board that there “isn’t a career out there that does not involve technology.” Asked why the course should be required rather than just an elective, Smith said the committee de cided that all students should have to learn essential techni cal skills. He compared this ex pectation to previous expecta tions that all students take typ ing classes to graduate at a time when typing was the cur rent “technology”. Brad Henegar will be devel oping the course from materi als presented in “Building a Foundation for Tomorrow,” a curriculum developed in Belle vue, Wash., and in use in schools throughout Washing ton. The course is designed as a survey of technology applica 40 active members. Several members received proficien cies. The chapter has had sev eral very successful fundrais ers, including a recently con cluded plant sale. The public is invited to the FFA Spring Ban quet to be held May 23rd. leader in developing new cur riculum. Board member Willis Meeuwsen expressed concern about installing a course as a requirement when it has not been “tested”. He was howev er, along with other board members, generally in favor of offering the course as an elec tive. The board will continue this discussion and make a de cision at next month’s meeting. Duane Lundstat, another com The Banks chapter of Future munity member of the commit Farmers of America (FFA) has tee, said that, by implementing received numerous awards at this course, Banks has the the district and state level ac “ability to put out students that cording to Scott Jansen and are not just good, but great.” Brad Evers. The chapter has Superintendent McGlasson been recognized for the last reminded the board that Banks two years as the fastest grow High School is considered a ing chapter and now has 35 - tions with emphasis on career opportunities. Students will “work” for a fictitious company as Production Assistants in a full range of technical applica tions including hardware and software installation and con figuration, graphics, database and spreadsheet design, word processing, research, e-mail and multimedia presentation. In other business the board: • Approved adoption of health textbooks; • Approved school fees for 2001-2002 including a new fee of $10 for Photo/Journalism and an increase from $5 to $10 for Agricultural/lndustrial Edu cation; • Announced that the sec ond annual Summer School will begin June 18th. Water user fee may bail out drowning Banks budget Banks City Council, at a special meeting on May 16, reached a consensus on how to institute user fees on city wa ter to reduce the city’s budget deficit and support the police department, but not whether to do so. Council has been con sidering the fee for two months and the budget approved by the budget committee includes revenue that would be generat ed by a fee of 10 cents for every thousand gallons of wa ter used (.001). Banks has modeled the pro posed plan on the charges as sessed by the city of Cornelius. The fees in Cornelius were originally franchise fees, as sessed as a percentage of profits. As of May 1st, the fee was changed to a user fee, based on a percentage of use. Cornelius is using the funds provided by the fee to fund em ployee positions that would have had to be cut and is a per manent part of the budget. The fee being considered in Banks is proposed as a temporary measure, primarily to eliminate the city’s debt and, secondarily, to provide additional funds for the police department. Accord ing to Orlowski the city “could exist on the (current) tax base, outside of the police depart ment" if the debt were eliminat ed. Lucas indicated that the city could charge users a fee. Ore gon’s voter-approved property tax limitation measures would not affect a user fee as long as the fee was not attached to as sess property values in any way. In addition, any fee estab lished would have to be “rea sonable." A variety of methods can be used to determine if a proposed fee is reasonable in cluding comparison with fees charged by other municipali ties, fees charged to other utili ties, and public comment. Public comment was re quested through question naires sent with the April bills to all 660 water users. By May 16, 141 responses - a remarkable 21.5 percent - had been re ceived by the city. A response rate of 10-15 percent is con sidered normal for this type of survey. Forty percent of those re sponding indicated that a fee of .001 would be acceptable. An additional 14 percent indicated that a higher rate of .002 would be acceptable. Sixteen percent of the responses indicated preference for a property tax, however, Oregon law would make it difficult to raise the needed income through in creased property taxes. Only seven percent of the respon dents wrote “No” on their re turned surveys and 20 percent of the surveys included unclas sified, written responses. Councilor Ryan Birr said he felt that the city had no choice but to enact some kind of fee in order to have the ability to re duce the city’s budget deficit. Attempting to define the meth ods of establishing whether or not a fee is reasonable for council Lucas indicated that, in addition to public comment, the current water rate should be compared to water rates in oth er municipalities. Franchise fees assessed on other utilities within the city should also be compared. Lucas and city engi neer Dale Merrill will prepare a report on city franchise fees and comparable cities water rates for the June council meeting. Councilor Tim Hardie asked Lucas and Orlowski what the effects of continuing to operate with a deficit would be. One ef fect, according to Lucas, would be to decrease the city’s ability to bond debt. Orlowski said that Oregon does have a bal anced budget law that applies to all public bodies and that there is no allowance in the law to plan to overspend. The risk, according to Orlowski, is that individual councilors could be sued by individual taxpayers for approving a deficit budget. “The real question is; ‘Would the citizens rather have a coun cil that passes a budget that contains real numbers or, as ferred from the water depart happens in many small cities, a ment to cover remaining ex penses in this fiscal year was budget with questionable num approved for the purchase of a bers just to meet budget law?’ ” police vehicle from the Port Orlowski said. The budget pro land police department. This posed by Orlowski and ap will result in an increase of the proved by the budget commit projected budget deficit for this tee reflects tight spending, con fiscal year. However, according tinued efforts to economize and to Orlowski, it is still expected conservative revenue projec that the budget will end next tions. Council reached a consen fiscal year (2001-2002) without sus and requested that Mayor a deficit as projected. Orlowski have a resolution pre pared for discussion at the June 12 meeting. The parame ters discussed included enact ing the fee by resolution with a “sunset” clause and establish ing a defined amount of the revenue to be used for debt re Phone 429-9410 duction. Orlowski urged the public to attend the next regu lar council meeting June 12th, where the resolution enacting a water user fee will be dis cussed and voted on. 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