MONROE — The School District of Monroe received a variety of good news at its first Board of Education meeting of 2024.
The meeting opened by celebrating its December Excellence in Education winners from each school, and donations totaling over $10,000 to a variety of district programs followed.
The district received two more positives. The highest rating possible in the 2022-23 school year fiscal audit report. The board was given a synopsis of the geotechnical exploration report on soil bearings at the new high school campus.
“I am happy to report ... we issued to the district what is known as an ‘unmodified opinion’, which is the cleanest form of opinion that any governmental institute can receive — and ultimately states that we as your auditors believe that the financial statements to be presented fairly,” said Brad Porter, auditor with Lauterbach and Amen, LLP, adding that they had no findings of errors or discrepancies. He also praised Monroe Business Administrator Ron Olson and his staff. “We had no difficulties in dealing with management, and we had no disagreements that we had in the course of our audit process.”
During the update on the high school project, the biggest news came from Jesse Duff of Fehr Graham. Of the 58 soil borings tested, 49 were on the school site and the other nine along the proposed route for the entry road from County KK.
Much of the soil is sandy, silty clays. They did find rock, including rippable rock. Much of the shallow bedrock was along the proposed road and not where the building is expected to be. The full report can be found on the school’s website, or through this link: http://tinyurl.com/5as246x5.
Working together, designers at Plunkett Raysich Architects (PRA), CG Schmidt, Fehr Graham and district officials can now move forward at faster speeds to determine the campus and building layout. Many of those renderings, including a 3D rendering fly-through presentation video, will be shown at the Jan. 24 community informational session that is open to the public.
“I’m paid to worry,” quipped Mike Huffman, president of Huffman Keel, the district’s hired owner’s representative. “I’m paid to be skeptical, but I feel pretty good right now.”
The district is about 1.5% above budget at the moment, which is actually much better than similar projects usually are at this point in the process, he said.
“That’s a pretty good spot to be in at this stage of the design. But that’s an estimate. I want to be clear on nomenclature,” Huffman said. “We know what the budget is — the budget is the money you have. Is this job going to be on budget? Absolutely; without question.”
The question, he said, is what would be in the building and on campus to meet that budget? Adjustments will have to be made in the long term, but at this point in the process, some of the changes are small and subtle, and usually to make things more efficient, like hallway flow.
Also at the meeting, the board approved:
● the lots for the spring school board candidates. The order will be incumbent school board members Teresa Keehn, Jim Curran, Phil Vosberg, then challenger Nick Baker.
● the 2024-25 School Calendar. Classes will end the first week in June 2025.
● open enrollment capacity limits, with only the special needs requests being capped. All special needs students living in the district will be able to receive services, the cap is only to limit the amount of open enrollees entering the district.
● the boys hockey high school co-op for the 2024-25 and 2025-26 seasons. (For more details, see Sports, Page A8.)
● a $10,500 donation from Colony Brands to the school district’s Backpack Buddies program. (Colony Brands also separately donated $3,200 to Brodhead’s Backpack Food Program.)
● a donated pallet of structural rectangular tube from Kuhn Knight to the MHS Tech Department for welding practice, as well as a retired industrial welding whip for class demonstrations.
● donations from Bluescope Buildings to the MHS Tech Department, including 3,000 pounds of plate steel and 10 pieces of square tube for welding and cutting practice.