Alva Review-Courier -

he Waynoka Board of Education, at its regular meeting Monday evening, Jan. 7, accepted the resignation of ag teacher Will Anderson, extended the contract of Superintendent Scott Cline, reviewed the school's finances, and approved two school fundraisers.

Present at the meeting were Board President Travis George, Board Clerk Rick George, and board members Clint Olson and John Hanson, along with Superintendent Cline and Superintendent Secretary Lori Adair.

As its first order of business, the board approved the consent agenda, consisting of the previous meeting's minutes; the reports on the general fund, building fund, activity fund, child nutrition fund, and funds for bonds No. 31 and No. 32; general fund encumbrances, building fund encumbrances, child nutrition fund encumbrances, bond fund No. 31 encumbrances, and change orders.

Superintendent Cline Reports On Finances

Superintendent Cline discussed financial issues in his report to the board. Expenses were up this month, he said.

"Looking at our finances this year, you can see that our expenditures were up this month just a little bit due to the stipends being moved into December instead of November," he said. "Then we had the roof getting fixed, the guttering and all that stuff getting fixed on our gym. We got reimbursed from our insurance company, but that still comes out of our expenses."

Revenue was up significantly, he said.

"Our revenue jumped up quite a bit. We're pretty high on collections; mainly, our ad valorem collections were really high this month, higher than the year previous."

One reason for this is that DCP Midstream – a Denver, Colorado-based oil and gas company that had sued Major County over its property taxes – settled its suit against the county.

"They protest their taxes every year," said Cline. "They settled for '15, '16, and '17, those three years, at an 18.5 percent reduction, and then 2018 they settled for 20.5 percent reduction. So we collected just over $76,000 from them for those four years. Obviously, we don't have a whole lot in Major County, so it's not real big for us."

Another reason for the revenue increase involves the settlement of another lawsuit: this one brought by several school districts against the Oklahoma Tax Commission for the way it distributed motor vehicle tax revenue to schools.

"They were underpaying 271 school districts and overpaying 146 school districts," said Cline. "We were one that was being underpaid. They ruled in favor of us and are going to withhold the motor vehicle tax from these schools that they were overpaying and reallocate it to the underpaid schools over 13 months. Our total that we're going to get from that is $26,018.29."

Child nutrition expenditures are about the same as last year, he said, though the revenue's down a bit from last year – "but that's mainly because we've had some problems with our software with the state department," Cline said. "For some reason we're not able to get our collections done, so we're still trying to work on that and get the bugs fixed."

Building fund expenditures are up a little due to storm shelter expenses, but collections are also up a little – "some of that DCP settlement did go into our building fund," Cline said.

Board Votes On OLAP Elections

As requested by the Oklahoma Public School lnvestment lnterlocal Liquid Asset Pool (OLAP), the Waynoka school board voted on whether to elect the nominees to the boards of member districts. The nominees and the organizations recommending them are:

Position No. 5: Tom Deighan, Superintendent of Lawton Public Schools (CCOSA)

Position No. 7: Howard Hampton, Superintendent of Bishop Public Schools (OASBO)

Position No. 8: Terry Grissom, Superintendent of Asher Public Schools (OROS)

Position No. 10: Roger Adail Executive Director of Oklahoma Association of School Business

Officials (OASBO)

Position No. 14: Rick Gowin, Board Member of North Rock Creek Public Schools (OSSBA)

The Waynoka school board voted to elect the nominees.

Leftover Balance of One Building Fund Moved to Another

Cline asked the board to move the funds from Building Fund No. 32, containing $139,275.41 from a bond passed in 2007 for building, to Building Fund No. 31.

"This is leftover money. We'd just like to close that fund," he said.

The board voted to approve the resolution, which stated "Since there is a combined unobligated Fund Balance of $139.275.41 on hand in the #32 Building Bond Fund of Wavnoka School District, and there is no known indebtedness against said fund balance, and this fund is no longer needed for the original purpose intended, we hereby authorize and direct the School District Treasurer to transfer the said fund balance of the #32 Building Bond Fund of Wavnoka

School District #l-9, to the Building Fund of the same School District to be used for maintenance and capital improvement purposes."

FFA, Athletics Fundraisers Approved

Next, the board approved two fundraisers.

The first is an FFA Labor Auction that will be held March 26. The FFA hopes to raise between $5,000 and $10,000 to use for the state convention, CDE, contest entries, banquet, and shop projects.

Resigning ag teacher Will Anderson.

The other fundraiser is for the athletics department. In this fundraiser, called Game-Time Radio Station, ads would be sold and then played on air at athletic events. It would be an internal "radio station" broadcast through the PA system. The fundraiser would be held during January with income generated estimated at $3,000 or more. The money would be used for athletics "equipment, entry fees, etc."

Ag Teacher Resignation Accepted; Superintendent's Contract Extended

After returning from executive session, the board voted to accept the resignation of ag teacher Will Anderson. Outside of the board meeting, Cline said Anderson had resigned so that he could take over the family farm. Cline was clearly sorry to see Anderson go, but understood his reasons. He recommended the board accept Anderson's resignation, and they did.

The board also voted to extend Cline's contract for the 2019-20 school year with an 8 percent salary increase and added a performance compensation based on evaluation in January.