Boscobel Area School’s District offices rolled into relocation

Jan 11, 2024

Boscobel’s school district offices will be built alongside the new classrooms and gymnasium construction that voters approved by referendum in the last election.

Unlike the student spaces, which will be paid for with referendum bonds, the office construction costs of about $500,000, will be covered by the district’s capital improvement fund. Several prior projects paid out of that fund came in under-budget, leaving a surplus, according to Jarrett Roethke, Director of Business Services for the district.

The current offices are contained in a building known as “The Annex,” which is adjacent to the Rock Building, which will be vacated when the fourth and fifth grades are moved into the consolidated district building.

“The way this came to be is we were considering the costs that the district might save by moving the district office,” explained Molly Ryan, Project Designer with Plunkett Raysich Architects, the firm engaged to design the new building.

That savings would be twofold, said Ryan, who addressed the school board at its regular meeting on August 14. For one thing, the vacated Rock and Annex buildings might fetch a higher price as a package sale.

“What might happen if those two properties were sold together?” she said. “And of course, if you move the district office out of the space that you’re now in, a space that is operated daily, you would see some operational savings as you take another building offline.”

The board voted unanimously to make the move.

The project is in the design phase, according to Ryan, and will remain so until the end of this year.

In its present iteration, the project is about $729,000 over budget—but that’s as it should be, according to Ryan and Matt Claggett of Findorff, the construction company on the job. Over the next few months, the team will shave away at the price until it matches the $21.5 million approved by voters.

The first of those cost-cutting measures came at the same meeting. The debate was over the size of the mezzanine in the gymnasium.

Should it be just big enough to contain the video and livestreaming cameras it’s designed to hold? Or should it be a full second floor over the team locker rooms, with enough space to eventually hold student activities such as a weight room or other classroom?

While everyone agreed the extra space would be nice, especially since it came at a bargain cost per square foot, ultimately the board opted for the cheaper option, slicing more than $150,000 off the total project budget.

Claggett updated the board on plans for the new baseball diamond, which will replace an older field in Kronshage Park. That project calls for several expansions and upgrades with a price tag of $254,000. The district has assembled a “user group” to review the plan, according to Lisa Wallin-Kapinus, District Administrator.

Board member Greg Loos echoed a question many have been asking: “Have all efforts been exhausted,” he asked, “to consider ways to keep the existing baseball field and turn that into a softball field?”

Unfortunately, that space would be too small to accommodate a softball field, according to Wallin-Kapinus.

There will be no changes to the way district support staff are paid—at least for now.

These are positions, (including food service, teachers’ aides, and the like), that are paid by the hour.

To take the sting out of the summer months, when such employees would go without a paycheck, the district “annualizes” their wages, that is, the district estimates how many hours an employee is likely to work during the nine months of school year and divvies that total amount over the full twelve months of the calendar year.

Staff receive paid medical and personal days, which they can use to make up for vacation pay. When they miss a day of work, on a snow day, for instance, they have the option to do “make-up work” at the end of the school year, or simply have their paycheck docked for the missed hours.

That system simplifies things for the staff—they just get the same old paycheck most weeks.

For the district administration, not so much. Keeping track of those hours and determining make-up work causes headaches in the district offices, Wallin-Kapinus told the board.

Moreover, annualizing means that the district is paying up front at the beginning of the year for labor that won’t occur until much later in the year. Managing that budget can be a headache, according to Roethke.

The district proposed moving to a straight hourly pay scheme, with each staffer earning pay for only the hours worked during that pay period. Instead of make-up work, staff would be allotted two days off for snow days and use their sick or personal leave to make up any additional lost time.

A half-dozen staff members showed up to argue against the idea, including one woman who’d suffered a serious health condition, and had used up all her sick and personal leave on doctor visits and recuperation.

“Those make up days were important to me, because I needed that income,” she told the board. “I will always make up my time, and I’m thankful that we have that option.”

Ultimately, the board tabled the proposed change, and left the door open for future compromises that meet all parties’ needs.

At its meeting, the board also conducted the following business:

• Approved contracts with Gundersen Boscobel Area Hospital and Clinics for OT/PT and CESA 3- for a behavior consultant.

• Agreed to let members of the community access district facilities, for example to put up an informational booth at the school, on a case-by-case basis, subject to administrative approval and board oversight.

• Directed the business manager to convert scholarship certificates of deposit over to higher-interest-bearing, and more accessible, money market accounts.

• Updated the employee handbook with relevant information for the 2023-2024 school year.

• Approved three donations from the Athletic Boosters: approximately $5,000 for drone and film cameras, as well as a refrigerator, all for the football program, $2,732 for the weight room.