Thursday, Dec. 19

 

Central School classrooms taking shape

[DEC. 19, 2002]  With partitions up in the new Central School classroom wing, it is becoming possible to imagine parts of the completed building. In addition to an upbeat construction report, Lincoln Elementary District 27 board members heard Wednesday night about plans to offer employees an HMO and about a bonus for Title I schools. The board set a $3.17 million tax levy for 2003-4.

"You get a good feel for [the new Central School] right now," architect Dave Leonatti conceded to the school board. Rick Spahn, project manager for S.M. Wilson, said 95 percent of the steel structure is in place, although roof framing remains to be done. The classroom wing is close to weather-tight, and interior work is progressing on both floors. If weather permits, the mezzanine slab for mechanical equipment will be poured today.

The school board unanimously passed a 2003-4 tax levy of $3.17 million, including bonds. This reflects a tax rate of $3.0356 per $100 of assessed valuation and is based on an estimated assessed valuation of $104.5 million. In the absence of information on total assessed valuation, Superintendent Robert Kidd said he based his estimate on historical trends.

He expects the final tax rate to be slightly down from last year. Tax caps limit the levy increase to 1.6 percent in each fund. Kidd said that, in the usual reduction of the total levy, he will work to keep the maximum amount allowable in the education fund, which is the most available for use.

 

In other business Kidd reported that Memorial Health Systems has pulled out of the district's Blue Cross/Blue Shield PPO. As a result doctors at Family Medical Center in Lincoln are no longer members of the PPO. To enable employees who wish to stay with Family Medical Center to do so, Kidd has worked with the insurance company to offer an HMO option. Employees who choose the HMO will incur some personal costs, but District 27 will have no additional expense.

Kidd said he expects relatively few employees to choose the HMO because of the short time to make the decision. They must have that information in today. Abraham Lincoln Memorial Hospital still belongs to the PPO, and St. John's Hospital in Springfield has joined it.

Washington-Monroe, Northwest and Jefferson schools have received a windfall in the form of increased Title I funds. Rebecca Cecil, principal at Washington-Monroe and Title I director, said she receives in late March the amount of funding for the next school year, but in October 2002 she learned that an additional $89,739 would be granted to the three schools.

Washington-Monroe, with the most qualifying students, gets the most dollars. In the past much of this money has been used to buy educational materials and technology. This year Cecil said the Washington-Monroe teachers felt they could help students more by hiring a teacher to work with small groups of children. The position has been posted, and Kidd expects to have a candidate to recommend in January. The position will terminate at the end of the school year.

 

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Cecil said, "I would have loved to have had the teacher all year," but she did not know about the additional funds in time. Annually she submits a budget for use of Title I funds, a rationale and performance measures to the Illinois State Board of Education for their approval. Most of the $271,000 budget approved in May 2002 goes toward salaries of Title I teachers and aides.

The three schools receive Title I funds because of their percentage of students who qualify for free or reduced-price lunches. Northwest and Jefferson schools will again use their money for educational materials and technology.

In other business the District 27 board approved several projects to be paid for with life safety funds. The most significant long-term improvement is reopening the air intake for the Northwest School kitchen and installing a unit to pump in fresh air. Kidd said the air intake had been closed after a thief used it to enter the building. It has since been roofed over, and the kitchen reaches sweltering temperatures.

Other life safety improvements approved Wednesday night are a fire alarm panel for Central, replacement tubes for the Lincoln Junior High boiler and an emergency repair to the Adams boiler. Kidd said he hates to put money into Central and the junior high, but schools must have heat and a working fire alarm panel.

 

In other building updates, board president Bruce Carmitchel noted that design work on the new junior high is continuing. Kidd said he is working with architect Dave Leonatti to determine whether it is feasible to reduce electrical demand in the older school buildings by replacing classroom lighting systems. An Illinois Clean Energy Community Foundation grant is available if demand can be cut by at least 10 kilowatt hours.

The District 27 board also gave preliminary approval to several changes in board policy. One establishes new rules allowing students and employees to have cell phones and regulating how they can be used. Another provides for staff training on identifying children with attention deficit disorder and responding to them without using drugs or punishment. A third change, based on the federal No Child Left Behind act, redefines the students' right to individually initiated, non-disruptive prayer. A fourth adds inter-fund transfers to the list of board responsibilities. The final vote to approve the changes comes in January.

[Lynn Spellman]


Gov. Ryan dedicates new
Regional Emergency Dispatch Center

$1.8 million Illinois FIRST grant used to construct new RED Center
to improve statewide emergency dispatch and coordination

[DEC. 19, 2002]  NORTHBROOK -- Gov. George Ryan joined with local officials Tuesday to dedicate the new Regional Emergency Dispatch Center in Northbrook. The RED Center is part of the Mutual Aid Box Alarm System statewide mutual aid network and will improve the state's emergency response capabilities in the event a terrorist attack were to occur.

"Here in Illinois we've taken the lead nationally in homeland security planning; other states look to us as a model of where they want to be," Gov. Ryan said. "The new RED Center will increase our state's dispatch coordination and control, allowing for more efficient resource mobilization through the state's Emergency Operations Center."

Gov. Ryan established the Illinois Terrorism Task Force in May of 2000. Recognizing the need for statewide coordination of Fire and EMS services in the event of a terrorist act, the state signed a "Memorandum of Understanding" with the Mutual Aid Box Alarm System, establishing the first-ever statewide mutual aid network. MABAS includes approximately 750 of Illinois' 1,200 fire departments and 25,000 of the state's 42,000 firefighters. MABAS is routinely activated about 750 times a year when mutual assistance is required for multiple-alarm fires, multiple-victim EMS incidents, hazardous material spills, or when technical rescue and recovery operations are needed.

 

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The state-of-the-art RED Center will dispatch responses to an estimated 24,000 annual calls for local fire EMS and special operations emergencies. When the state emergency plan is activated, the RED Center will become Illinois' main asset for dispatching fire and EMS services throughout Illinois.

The new facility, approximately 4,000 square feet, is built to Florida hurricane standards for sustainment and survivability. It includes multiple emergency electric back-ups, satellite-based automatic vehicle locator system, fully integrated computer-aided dispatch, records and data management systems.

The state is paying $1.8 million for the RED Center through Illinois FIRST. To date, Illinois FIRST has provided more than $182 million for homeland security efforts and equipment, including fire and police stations, breathing equipment, thermal-imaging cameras, bulletproof vests, police cars, firetrucks, ambulances, hazmat response supplies, communications systems and other emergency equipment.

[Illinois Government News Network
press release]

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