On Wednesday, July 19 the Antwerp School Board met together to discuss the upcoming school needs. Bob Herber opened the meeting with the visitor Bryce Steiner present from the West Bend News.
The June 29 minutes were accepted. The budget over the next two years will be flat. Transportation funds were cut by the state.
Dennis Recker said there was no meeting in July for Vantage.
Christine Stuart reviewed the financial report with the school board members.
The Income for June was $474,289.53
The expenses for June was $704,6475.64
Interest income: $3694.15
The total receipts of the fiscal year was 9,827,267.81
Total Expenditures was $9,092,183.90
Enrollment for this year is 770.
1.5% greater income than projected
2.11% Less expenditures than expected
High School Principal Travis Lichty talked about his coming to the school and the new Spanish Teacher. The secretary position will be filled by Amber Lucas, after over 30 applications were brought in replacing Denise Coleman, who moved to a new job outside of the school. For a short time Travis was working at both Antwerp and Hicksville and is trying to work together with sharing speakers and costs. This will be in September on a Wednesday night.
Dennis Recker stated he was excited to have Travis back at Antwerp.
Elementary Principal Amy Hammer said she just started working in the new position and is learning the ropes of this job.
Superintendent Marty Miller said he is excited with the new leadership coming to Antwerp and he is just fine with questions. The press box is being worked on at the football field. The footers have been poured.
The baseball and softball field are being worked on with the softball field being moved and may have a better area for a concession stand with all of it done. The scoreboards are also being installed soon. The solar fields are also moving on and being reviewed by the attorneys and the EPA for the approval. Everything will be staked out next week and beginning trenching. It will be loud at first with pounding of the poles into the ground. The panels are coming from New Jersey and the panels will be installed in August. October 1st is the scheduled date for bringing the new power generating system online.
The new solar field was initial going to be 602 KW now it’s 1megawatt with improvements. This is the maximum size allowed by law before it’s classified as a utility.
Over the next 20 years the solar field is expected to save the district over $1 million and the school will be in a rate of around $.075 per kilowatt. It should cover 92% of the schools power usage and Harold Gotke said it could do even more with power usage becoming more efficient. New LED lighting will be installed throughout the building and over the 10 year repayment should come out at no extra cost because they use much less power. Harold says the school currently spends about $4000 a year in bulbs alone and this should cut that down. They will be coming starting August 4th to change the fixtures.
The stage floor and gym floors will also be refinished this year. The parking lot is currently being refinished and repaired by Loop Paving. Harold stated a server needed replaced and now laptops are being re-imaged back to new and several new were purchased. The solar audit revealed there were pumps that were generating a lot of heat and so Harold had them rebuilt because they weren’t pumping due to valves not opening.
$1250 was awarded from Paulding Putnam for the grant of the anti-bullying measures speaker that Mr. Lichty is bringing in to the students.
