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"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]
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"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] |
