School board tours renovated facility, tackles budget

Posted 7/5/22

A tour of a recently renovated 70-year-old cottage kicked off Tuesday’s regular meeting of the Park County School District 1 board.  

Now dubbed the Special Services Cottage, the …

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School board tours renovated facility, tackles budget

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A tour of a recently renovated 70-year-old cottage kicked off Tuesday’s regular meeting of the Park County School District 1 board. 

Now dubbed the Special Services Cottage, the building will house special services staff in the district as well as office space for Heritage Health.

The cottage, formerly the site of home economics instruction, was later rented by MakerSpace. Renovations began early in the 2021-2022 academic year. 

The building experienced delays in the project throughout the year when it was discovered it was originally built with no insulation and unlevel beams, among other issues. 

TNT Contractors, LLC, which renovated the building, was praised during the tour for working through these unexpected issues to provide the completed building on time. 

Other notable items on the agenda Tuesday evening included discussions on the fiscal year revenue and potential new logos for the district.

In advance of the board’s July 18 budget meeting, Business Services Coordinator Mary Jo Lewis provided a report on the current state of the district’s 2022-2023 finances.

She explained that the preliminary budget of $28,571,240 has been increased to 30,000,477.  Furthermore, due to delayed tax revenues, the district received two disbursements in June as opposed to receiving one in June and July.

“They had to do two disbursements in June. So in June alone, we collected $1.8 million in tax revenue,” she said. 

She explained that in order to spend this money, it is necessary for the board to pass a deficit budget. 

“Our expenditure budget has to be higher than our revenue in order to expense that because it’s already in cash; we already received it,” Lewis said.  “So it’s a bit of a quandary. We are over by an overall $1.9 million. There are districts that are $11 million, $12 million over because they are in high, high mineral districts.”

Lewis also touched on raising lunch prices, although an official amount will be decided on before July’s meeting in which the 2022-2023 budget will be presented.

In addition to the budget, the school board briefly discussed a redesign of the Park County School District 1 logo. A timeline has not been set to vote on the logo redesign, but the board plans to discuss it during its August retreat.

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