Board elects officers, sets levies

At the December 17 meeting of the Odessa School Board, Ed Deife was elected as the new board chairman for 2015. Heather Valverde is the vice chairman, Marcus Horak the legislative representative and Joe Schlomer the Washington Interscholastic Activities Association representative.

Committee assignments are Deife and Schlomer, facilities committee; Horak, curriculum committee; Valverde and Horak, board representatives for negotiations. Being new to the board, Roland Singer was not assigned to any existing committees.>On second readings, the board approved policies dealing with enrollment and release of resident students to other districts.

The board unanimously approved the resolution to present a replacement levy before the voters for the same $698,000 that has been requested for the past seven years. White said that an increase in the assessed value of real estate in the district of over $25,000,000 decreases the assessment rate to property owners. Therefore, the levy assessment will be reduced from the $3.57 per thousand dollars of property value, as estimated for the 2015 levy, to an estimated $3.18 for 2016.

The board also unanimously approved the resolution to present a replacement levy for the capital projects fund of the same $110,000 that has been requested for the past seven years. These funds are used only for major projects to upgrade the school facilities. Funds were used this past year for carpeting the hallways and for paving a path to improve access to the grandstand at Finney Field.