(Audubon) The Audubon School Board passed another emergency resolution related to the COVID-19 pandemic at their meeting Monday.
Superintendent Eric Trager said as part of that resolution they are going to continue to pay all of their employees as if school were in session.
“The thinking behind that is we’ve already received the income from the state to pay those folks, so there’s really no reason financially for us not to and putting them in the unemployment pool is probably unnecessary stress. Also, tax payers are paying the salaries of those folks and also are paying the unemployment benefits at this point so we thought really to reduce the burden on taxpayers we would just continue to pay like we plan to,” explained Trager.
The other part of the resolution is that they are going to do voluntary educational opportunities for their K-12 students.
“We’re working hard to step up our game in that regard. We’re going to have a one-stop shop on our website. I believe that will be up and running tomorrow so parents, students and the public will be able to go and see exactly what our response to the COVID-19 pandemic is and how we’re helping to continue to offer students educational opportunities,” said Trager.
In other action, the Board approved their bond resolution to go to the market and sell bonds for their building project.
“We’re going to sell seven and a half million dollars worth of bonds and then we have to also sell what are called refund bonds to pay off the 2013 existing debt. This is all part of our bond election we had in March. This is moving us forward so that we’re able to go out and sell those bonds and get going on the project,” explained Trager.
The Audubon School Board had a public hearing scheduled on the FY21 budget, but Trager said they did not have the public hearing since there was an error in the published budget and it had to be republished. He said they are going to have the budget hearing and approval on April 20th.
The board also hired DeAnn Leiting a school social worker and that position will be shared with the Coon Rapids- Bayard School District. Elena Pelzer was hired as a 5th Grade Teacher.
