District 88

sets levy

limit

School to use bonds to pay for air quality projects

By KURT NESBITT

Journal Staff Writer

NEW ULM -- Air quality issues are at the heart of the increased levy amount and the bonds that District 88 School Board voted to adopt Monday evening.

The board also approved an issue of bonds in order to pay for air quality projects.

The board set its levy limit for 2004 at a little more than $2.5 million.

The votes help start the district's budget process for next year. The largest increases in the levy amounts are coming in money for operating expenses, school integration, health and safety projects and the district's leases on its land and buildings.

Money for unemployment and for Safe Schools are the only areas where levy amounts are decreasing in 2004. The district also lost money due to state legislative decisions to cut state funding for early childhood programs.

The levy, which was passed with a unanimous vote, represents a 4 percent increase over last year's amount.

Earlier in the meeting, school board members also voted unanimously to give Springsted Financial of St. Paul permission to start work on a $655,000 bond issue that will also go to help pay for air quality projects.

John Nefsted, senior vice president of Springsted, said that many other school districts are using municipal bonds as a way to pay for improvement projects similar to New Ulm's air quality issues. He told board members the district is one of the first to use bonds in such a manner.

Under the resolution, the district is going to start paying about $88,000 a year for 10 years at a 4 percent interest rate once payments begin in 2005. The bonds would go on sale on Oct. 23, Nefsted said.

Board member Susan Nierengarten asked him if there is any advantage in getting a bond rating from Moody's, a New York financial firm that rates municipal bonds based on information about the community that is issuing them.

Nefsted said people who buy the bonds often look at the ratings even though they cost issuers more money to obtain. He characterized a Moody's rating as a kind of "Good Housekeeping Seal of Approval."

Nierengarten later moved approval of a resolution authorizing the sale of the bonds.

In other action, the board heard Curriculum Director Bill Sprung's annual report about the district's curriculum, instruction and student performance.

The report reiterated an early idea that Spring introduced one week ago; the new Minnesota Academic Standards are going to "present a significant challenge to all staff who work in these areas" as "80 percent of the school curriculum will be rewritten this year."

District 88 has four teachers who are currently teaching outside the area where they are licensed by the state in math, special education and family and consumer science.

District 88 students scored above the state average on the Iowa Test of Basic Skills. The average national score is in the 50th percentile. The average student's score was in the 60th percentile, which means New Ulm students tested higher than 60 percent of the students who took the test all over the country.

District 88 kids also fared well on the Minnesota Comprehensive Assessments, with 69 percent of third-graders reading above their grade level and 53 percent performing above grade-level in math.

Fifth-graders also did well, as 57 percent of them were above their grade level in writing, 72 were above grade-level in reading and 55 percent were above grade-level in math.

"Well over half of our students, by definition, were in the top 25 percents of all students in the nation," Sprung said. "You need to feel good about how solid a performance we have at this point."