The Salem Community High School Board has approved a tentative budget with a $700,000 projected deficit but has an $8.1-million fund balance entering the year to cover it.
Superintendent Dr. Brad Detering says the deficit was planned.
“The largest deficit is finishing up the payment of the kitchen cafeteria renovation. Some of that revenue is from an earlier bond sale which we knew we were going to use for part of this project, and some of it is the expenditures of some of the fund balances that have been built up in both the building fund and working cash fund in order to be able to cash flow projects like this and not have to sell more bonds.”
The building fund will have a projected $771,000 deficit, the education fund $70,000, and the transportation fund a $29,000 deficit. To shore up the building fund, the board approved a $1-million permanent transfer from the working cash fund. The tentative budget will be on display until the budget hearing at the next school board meeting on September 25th.
Detering reported the $2-million kitchen and cafeteria renovation project is virtually complete.
“We still have some minor adjustments with some kitchen appliances so they operate at the optimum levels, but overall it’s gone very well. We are pleased where we are at. We just need to make a few more adjustments to finish the project off.”
Detering says students seeing the renovated cafeteria for the first time seemed impressed by the new look.
Principal John Boles reported enrollment is up 40 students from last year and is now at 730 students. He’s pleased to see that it appears SCHS will now stay above the 700-student mark. Boles reported 170 freshmen, 182 sophomores, 183 juniors, and 195 seniors.
Salem Community High School students will receive free admission to home athletic events when presenting a student ID. Detering says the goal is to get more students to attend events. He notes a number of other schools have a similar policy. But Detering did not want to extend the free admission to students from opposing schools, saying no other district is offering that benefit to SCHS students at road games.
The board approved an increase in official pay to match other conference schools and to offer the same or slightly better pay than the neighboring South Seven Conference. Detering is not recommending any increased admission fees to pay for the higher costs.
In other action, the board employed Lanelle Valdez as Thoughtwell sponsor. Three volunteer coaches were approved. They were Chris Watkins Junior in football, Jennings Barnfield in cross county, and Kyle Gansauer in golf.
New serving line and register station at SCHS Cafeteria. Photo by Bruce Kropp.
