Posted by (+3270) 11 years ago
Just a reminder...Remember to vote in the School Board election tomorrow from 12:00 to 8:00 PM. IMPORTANT!
Faber-Bryan elected to unified school board
By Don Cogger
The Miles City Unified Board of Trustees will include a new face for the 2012-2013 school year, as Lindsay Faber-Bryan was elected to the board yesterday with 327 votes.
Faber-Bryan will replace Matt Phillips, who received 296 votes.
"Matt was appointed to take Fred Scheid's place when Fred moved from the city to Kinsey," said Miles City Superintendent Jack Regan. "It was a really close vote."
With three seats on the board open, four residents declared their intention to run. Incumbents Jeff Donnelly and Erin Hould were re-elected to their seats with 315 and 331 votes, respectively. The 1,269 votes accounted for an approximately 10 percent voter turnout, according to Regan.
Faber-Bryan will bring energy and enthusiasm to the board, Regan said.
"She's a young person with a young child; she's obviously interested in the school district for that reason," he said. "She's a nurse with County Health, so she'll bring some ideas about children's health issues to the table."
Regan said Faber-Bryan will be joining a diverse board, with each member having found his or her niche within it, which is the way a board should always operate.
"Our board has been really good to work with; they really try to do what's best," he said. "I can't think of anyone on the board who really has an agenda outside of doing what is best for the students.
"If you go onto the board with that frame of mind, you're going to have a good-working board. If you don't, you end up with a board in chaos that doesn't function very well. Just west of us 150 miles will show you what those kind of boards are like."
In budget news, because of increased enrollment, the elementary budget was about $100,000 more than last year. With declining enrollment at the high school level, that budget will be about $130,000 less. Because of those cuts, the school district was forced to become creative with shifting of personnel to keep the budget under control without eliminating any programs.
"We could have run a mill levy to get back to what this year's budget is, but the board chose not to," Regan said. "It's easier, and less painful in the long run, to cut gradually, than in five years when you can't run mill levies anymore to have to pay back $500,000 if enrollment hadn't increased substantially.
"That would be a difficult number to have to cut without changing the whole profile of the high school."
Because of yesterday's election, this month's meeting of the Unified Board of Trustees has been changed to Thursday, May 10, at 7 p.m. Following the meeting will be a re-organization meeting to announce the election results, as well as the election of a board chairperson, a vice-chairperson and the appointment of a district clerk.
The SH rural school district elected Lance Bice by acclamation. Bice was the incumbent, and no one opposed him. No other rural schools had ballot issues.