While maintenance workers in Morton District 709 were busy over the summer, they were not as busy as in previous summers.
That is what Superintendent Dr. Roger Kilpatrick told school board members at their Aug. 17 meeting.
He said this is because the district is in the process of doing the facilities study, and did not want to get ahead of that work.
“In addition to that, we know that there were a tremendous number of unknowns this year as we looked at the financial situation,” Kilpatrick said. “We wanted to make sure that we allowed flexibility there in case some of those major unknowns popped up.”
Summer work that was done included a lot of 10-year life safety work.
“Brown Elementary came up with their 10-year resurvey this year and the other five schools come up next year,” he added. “In order to get a complete sign off, you have a survey every 10 years and we need to make sure all of the work in the original 10-year survey was completed.”
Summer projects at Brown were limited to replacing the vinyl base in the gym.
Other summer work at the elementary schools included additional exterior lights and asbestos removal and tile replacement in the gym at Grundy, painting the gym and constructing storage areas at Lincoln and plaster repair and adding fire shutters in the kitchen at Jefferson.
Work at Morton Junior High included new steps on the north side of the gym and a new ceiling in the cafeteria.
At the high school, the north courtyard was fenced and floor tile in the counseling hall was replaced. Kilpatrick said the major project at the high school, the new gym floor, should be complete in about three weeks.
In other business, the board:
• approved the district’s 2010-11 tentative budget.
“We’re able to estimate at this time that we should have a balanced budget for this year,” Kilpatrick said.
It is estimated that state revenues in the district will decline from $4.3 million in 2008, to $2.1 for the 2010-11 school year.
As of June 30, the total amount owed to the district by the state was $849,595.
“It’s an interesting year,” Kilpatrick said. “It’s a challenging year and we know next year’s going to be less challenging.”
The budget will be on display for 30 days before a public hearing at 7 p.m. Sept. 21 at Jefferson.
• approved the appointments of Angela Kupferschmid, Jack Rosemann and Nicole Carvey, all substitute teachers; Jennifer Maroney and Shelley Adkins-Gee to part-time special education instructional aides at Lincoln School, Kimberly Serrurier and Michelle Eads to part-time special education instructional aides at Morton Junior High School; Anita Stidman to part-time instructional aide at Grundy School; Angela Kupferschmid and Wesley Royce to substitute instructional aides; Allison Rapp, part-time class size/classload instructional aide at Lincoln School; Jacqueline Altenberger, part-time early childhood instructional aide and part-time class size/class load instructional aide at Lincoln School, Zach Smith to part-time class size/class load instructional aide at Grundy School and Amanda Nelson to part-time reading instructional aide at Jefferson School.
• approved the rehire of Amanda Collins as part-time special education instructional aide and part-time class size/class load instructional aide at Jefferson School.
• approved the resignations of David Price from his position as a part-time special education instructional aide at Morton Junior High School, Partricia Hutchison from her position as a part-time reading instructional aide at Jefferson School and Sana Becker from her position as units department head at Morton Junior High School.
