SAVE pays for buses, technology

(The following is taken from the Superintendent’s blog on the Williamsburg Community School District website.)

As you may have read in an earlier blog post, the district will be holding a special election Tuesday, March 5 to ask voters to approve our Revenue Purpose Statement, a resolution necessary for districts to access sales tax revenue available to all schools and for a variety of purposes.

The Revenue Purpose Statement describes the kinds of expenditures that are allowable for the district's Secure an Advanced Vision for Education fund dollars, also known as the one-cent sales tax.

All public school districts in Iowa receive funding from this statewide sales tax collection, and each district needs to have a Revenue Purpose Statement that is approved by eligible voters in the school district.

I'd like to share with you how the district has used those dollars in the past few years. Make no mistake. This funding, set aside for things like infrastructure, is critical to the district's ability to maintain our buildings, grounds, facilities, technology resources, and transportation fleet.

So, what have we been spending the sales tax revenue on lately? While I won't list everything that we've used SAVE dollars for, I hope to give you a sense of the way we're using those dollars here in the district.

In 2021, for example, we purchased a used propane school bus to add to our fleet. That used bus cost about $62,900.

We've also used our SAVE funds to make lease payments on buses. Leasing, with the intention to purchase the bus at the end of the lease, has allowed us to replace two buses per year in our fleet on a couple separate occasions, especially when interest rates were so low.

In March of 2023, we purchased a new school bus for $138,148, and our most recent bus, which will also most likely be paid from SAVE cost about $151,000.

In addition to updating our bus fleet, we've purchased two eight-passenger vehicles from Capper Ford in the past couple years, as well. Those vehicles transport students to activities, and our staff members to things like professional learning opportunities.

SAVE is a critical resource as we work to maintain a safe, efficient, and reliable transportation fleet.

You might remember that the parking lot at the junior/senior high school was repaired, seal coated and striped a couple summers ago. At a cost of approximately $70,000, the funds to make that project happen came from SAVE dollars.

And some concrete replacement at Mary Welsh, as well, helped to extend the life of that driveway. We installed a sidewalk from West Street to Valley Road to provide a safer way for students in that area to get to the junior/senior high school, again, through dollars available to us through this statewide one cent sales tax collection.

In 2021, our district's phone system reached its end-of-life. That meant that we could no longer get technical support if we had issues with any of the phones themselves or the equipment to operate the system. For that reason, we purchased a new phone system at a cost of $63,818.

We used SAVE dollars on other similar projects, as well. You might be surprised to hear that our "bell system" software was out-of-date, and, while it still worked relatively well, it presented a cybersecurity risk.

In order to "close up" that risk, we needed to purchase new software. Dollars for upgrades to different pieces of technology helps us decrease our vulnerability for cyberattacks, which are becoming more and more common.

Computers are also an allowable purchase with SAVE dollars. We've recently purchased 90 iPads to be used by our kindergarten, first and second grade students at a cost of over $26,000.

Similarly, many of our staff members' laptops were aging, had become less reliable, and were requiring regular repairs. SAVE dollars allowed the district to purchase 75 laptops for teachers.

Those devices get used every day during nearly every period of the day and travel with teachers, as well. But they are an expensive tool: almost $74,000 to replace a portion of the fleet of computers for our teaching staff.

I hope through this entry you've gotten a sense of the importance of this resource for our district, and that you have a sense of how that resource is being used for in our district.

As a reminder, the special election to approve the District's Revenue Purpose Statement is Tuesday, March 5. Early voting at the Iowa County Auditor's Office starts Feb. 14, and closes at 4:30 p.m. Monday, March 4.

Voters may also request an absentee ballot by going to the Iowa Secretary of State's website or by contacting the Iowa County auditor. Absentee ballot requests must be received by the County Auditor by Feb. 19.