District 204 Board Votes Sale of Bonds

</element><element id="paragraph-1" type="body"><![CDATA[ Wednesday's edition of the newspaper contained a story about issues relating to the Open Meetings Act in the Pinckneyville District 204 school.

General business of the board included the following.

-- approved the sale of $350,000 in general obligation bonds. The funds will be put in the general fund and will be used to purchase computers and other capital improvement items, Reidelberger said. The district is using Bernardi Securities Inc. of St. Louis, Mo. as their bonding agents. The bonds will be paid off in 2024. Board president Byford Reidelberger did not have any information available on the impact of the bonds on real estate taxes.

-- approved a lease-purchase agreement with Central States Buses. The lease to purchase program costs the district $6,280 per year for the use of five buses that they then have the option to purchase at the end of that time. The district will lease one 71 passenger bus, three 65 passenger buses and one 54 passenger bus.

Board member Jeff Suchomski remarked that he was unsure that Cummings engines on the buses were the best choice. He said that he prefers International Engines. Superintendent Patty Hilliard-Wood said that the clincher for her was that the service could be completed locally. Loos Repair service will receive training from Central States that will enable them to make repairs on the buses. The International Engines would have to be repaired in Mt. Vernon. Central States will provide a replacement bus for repairs that take more than a day or two.

n extended the contract of Superintendent Patty Hilliard-Wood for an additional year. Hilliard-Wood had just completed the first year of a three-year contract. The extension will keep her in place through the 2011-2012 school year.

-- set the rate of pay for on-call bus maintenance at $20 per hour.

-- approved the purchase of five administrative computers, 29 student computers and the accompanying software. The administrative computers will cost $3,739, the student computers will cost $21,529 and the software will cost $5,613. Hilliard-Wood said that the school received an $18,000 grant and a $5,000 private donation that will be applied to the cost of the computers and software. Some of the computers currently in the lab will be upgraded and used to replace the classroom computers. Each class will have two student computers and a teacher's computer at the beginning of the next school year. Hilliard-Wood said that the no original software disks for the computers currently in the lab could be found. Without those disks the school cannot determine whether or not the software they're using is licensed. The new software will make sure the district is complying with licensing requirements.

-- approved the baseball, softball and boys basketball schedules for the coming year. The board directed Hilliard-Wood to change the time of a Jan. 7 game that was planned for 1:15 p.m. Several members objected to holding a ball game during the school day. The 2008-2009 basketball schedule did include a game played at 204 School during the school day. Students were allowed to attend all or part of the game, depending upon their grade level.

-- set the admission price to home athletic events as $2 for adults and $1 for students. 204 Students are admitted free.

-- set the rate of pay for athletic referees/umpires at $40 per game for each referee.

-- set the meeting dates for the next year as the second to last Tuesday of each month in the sixth grade classroom. The board will meet at 7 p.m. from April through August and 6 p.m. from September through March.