The Broken Bow Board of Education held a work session meeting on Monday, September 30, at the Broken Bow Library. The noon-hour meeting included a discussion and review of details and a final vote on the budget and final tax request. All members were present.
The Board unanimously approved the budget and tax request of 9,194,181.00 dollars for 2024-2025. The school’s operating budget will total 7,578,019 .00 dollars, slightly lower than the 2023-2024 budget. The bond payment for the school’s addition and renovation will total 1,616.162.00.
Broken Bow School Superintendent Darren Tobey told KCNI/KBBN News that the Board of Education did its best to be transparent with the public about the bond process. Tobey said they could assure taxpayers there would not be any additional money requests beyond what they had already asked for. Because of increases in revenue from the state, Tobey said they were able to lower the budget request and then fill in the pieces with the bond that was passed.
Mr. Tobey noted that whatever property owners paid in taxes for the Broken Bow Schools last year, taxes will be the same starting a year from now. However, if your property valuation increases because of the county assessor, so will your taxes in general. During Monday’s work session it was noted that property valuations in the district went from $987,718,592 to $1,039,968,340, a 5% increase.
During the administrator comments portion of Monday’s work session, Tobey said that he is not aware of any complaints that have been made about school accessibility during construction, even with all of the activities the school is hosting. He added that the anticipated target date to be back in the “38 building” is the middle of March 2025.
In other board business, the board unanimously approved the purchase of the property at 419 North 7th Avenue, which Tobey indicated is close to two other properties the school has purchased. He added that this one likely will not be rentable and that a bidding process for demolition would likely take place shortly after the October 21 closing date for the $60,000 property.
The work session adjourned at 12:49 PM and the next regular meeting was set for October 21 at 6:00 PM at the Broken Bow Library. Several policy reviews are set to take place at that meeting, including the school meal program and meal charges, the AED program, students electing to attend school in an adjoining state, disbursement, chain of command, purchasing credit card program, a petty cash policy, threat assessment and response, and crisis team duties.
