MINERAL SPRINGS – The number of computers available to students at the Mineral Springs Saratoga School District will increase in the coming months following action at Monday’s school board meeting.
Board members voted unanimously in favor of a request from Superintendent Curtis Turner to use $30-$40,000 in federal program funds to purchase new devices for each classroom, although the exact amount spent and number of computers acquired will depend on bids submitted to the school. Turner said he hopes to receive proposals from “two or three” companies before making a decision, but remained cautious about making the purchases without the board’s approval.
“I didn’t feel comfortable making that expenditure without at least recognizing you as a board,” he explained.
Turner said the money used to purchase the computers will largely come from the school’s Title I and National School Lunch Act funds, portions of which must either be spent or returned on an annual basis.
In unrelated business, board members also approved a proposed budget of expenditures for the 2016-17 school year which lists salaries in the amount of $3,060,00 and instruction expenses totaling $1,350,00. The budget also anticipates maintenance and operations expenses of $700,000, a pupil transportation expenditure of just over $400,00 and continued bonded debt payments of $225,020.
Non-bonded debt expenses under the proposal were set at $30,000, while uncategorized operating expenses total $25,658. The budget includes no costs related to dedicated maintenance or building fund expenses.
Other business conducted during the meeting was largely routine for this period of the school year, including the approval of a physical insurance policy from the Arkansas School Board Association with a $38,938.97 annual premium and a student policy from the Dwight Jones Agency with a $12,121.68 cost. The vote to approve both was unanimous, as was a subsequent vote to hire four high school students and two adults as part time summer workers.
