By Andrew Walsh
Awalsh@wbcowqel.com
Contracts and concessions were the two topics dominating discussion at Thursday’s meeting of the Galion School Board of Education.
The concession stand renovation at Heise Park is fruit of the new Freese Foundation setup. The City Government and the Freese Foundation have recently hammered out new rules to allow a wider variety of groups to be on the receiving end of funds from this generous foundation. After a project is approved by the new Freese Advisory Board, the Freese Fund will put forth 75 percent of the funds, as long as there is a 25 percent match from the interested party.
Scott Carpenter of the Galion Booster Club presented the plans to the school board. These plans have been approved by the Freese Fund, but Carpenter wanted the board to be apprised of the situation. Due to State rules, any project exceeding $50,000 must be put to open bid. Since the engineering work for the stadium/concession renovations would be part of a project exceeding that number, it needed board approval so that search for an architect could begin. The board approved of the plans unanimously.
Galion teachers put forth a demonstration of solidarity during the ongoing contract negotiations. Representative Kim Chandler spoke about how a failure to reach an agreement occurred last August, and that they have been operating on a default contract since then. The situation is going to go before a federal mediator on March 30.
“A contract needs to be settled,” Chandler said.
In the financial report, Treasurer Charlene Parkinson reported a cash balance of $3.2 million. At the beginning of March $2.9 million came in in real estate tax revenues, and $324,000 came in from federal grant reimbursements.
The Ohio Floor Company was approved to redo the middle and high school gym floors this summer and a pay scale revision was made to provide a full year contract to special education coordinator Cindy Parrot.
The $10,890 in the Marjorie Leyden Scholarship was returned to the family due to low interest rates. The family is seeking to reinvest the money to rebuild the fund and recreate the scholarship in the future.