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Sunday, May 19, 2013
Covering Dallas, Monmouth, Independence, Falls City and surrounding areas since 1868
August 28, 2012
DALLAS -- Students in the Dallas School District will attend school an additional two days during the 2012-13 school year.
The Dallas School Board approved adding the days Monday night, despite not seeing the latest state revenue forecast or solid enrollment numbers.
"At this time, however, I am still comfortable just with the anecdotal information I'm getting from the (school) buildings about enrollment," Business Manager Tami Montague said. "We obviously won't know what the final numbers will be until Oct. 1, but it seems pretty stable out there. ... It doesn't feel like we are losing many students."
Superintendent Christy Perry said she is fairly confident in the numbers from the elementary schools and recommended the board move forward with adding the days.
The board approved the recommendation unanimously, reducing the number of furlough days to six.
While the board was able to add school days, it's back to the drawing board on building a new concession and restroom building for Dallas High School athletic fields.
The district opened bids for the project Aug. 21 and discovered they were much higher than expected.
The district planned to use leftover incentive funds from energy upgrades to pay for the facility, but with the price tag significantly steeper than anticipated, the bids were rejected.
"The bids came in about $220,000 higher than what we estimated," Perry said. "I went ahead and rejected all the bids because I think that is an amount our community would not be supportive of for new construction."
She said the high cost -- around $400,000 -- stems from the current restroom facility at Gallaspy Stadium not being connected to the city's sewer system. The site would need to be improved and connected to the city sewer, which accounted for the extra cost.
Perry asked the board to allow the district's Citizens Advisory Committee, which recommended the project, to make a final decision on what to do with the funding. Perry said it could be used to improve the site to connect to the city sewer without building a new restroom or spent on maintenance needs in other buildings.
"At some point we need to do something about the Gallaspy facility, but don't know if tying it in with the new restroom facility makes the most sense right now," Perry said.
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