The Callaway Board of Education met Monday, Sept. 12, with the primary order of business on the agenda being the adoption of the 2022-23 budget and setting the tax levy. Public hearings were held on both to give district patrons an opportunity to voice concerns or ask questions about the proposed budget and levy; however, no one did.

The board also held public hearings on a number of school policies, which included: student fees, anti-bullying, parent involvement, attendance and multicultural education. “We have to do those every year - it is a state requirement. We voted to reaffirm those,” explained Superintendent Bryon Hanson.

Following the public hearings the board moved into items on the agenda that required a vote, the first of which was a discussion on reimbursement for drivers education classes for district students. Hanson will draft up a procedure for students to take drivers ed through the Nebraska Safety Center, and then get reimbursed a portion of that through the school.

“It’s something we’ve done in the past, but it kind of went away with Covid,” said Hanson. “We are going to try to bring that back this year.”

With no one present for the public hearings to voice concerns or objections, the board then unanimously approved the budget and tax levy as proposed. The adopted budget amount for 2022-23 is $5,689,300. That includes all available resources to the district. The tax request for the 2022-23 fiscal year is $3,467,726.83.

The levy is split between the general fund, at .714357 and special building fund at .026724. The levy is slightly lower this year than last year, but the spending is slightly higher.

“I like to remind people that even when we get grants, we have to budget to spend those grants. We know we are going to get reimbursed on those, but we have to publish and budget up front like we are receiving that money through taxes then that can increase our reserves or carry-over to put us in a better position for the following year,” explained Hanson. Hanson said though overall spending did go up, the levy went down - and there are a couple of reasons for that. “We were able to do some things with our cash reserves, and we did get quite a few grants this year that helped offset some of those costs.” The big project for the district this year was the replacement of the school’s boiler system. Hanson said they were able to put all of the district’s ESSER II money toward the air quality enhancements. “We could have used some ESSER III funds toward that as well, but we were using that to help fund summer school and some positions in the building to increase learning for students. We are also looking at some after-school programs and things like that,” said Hanson. “We got another grant that we can use for after-school and summer programming, so then we were able to take some of that ESSER III money that we had earmarked for programming and shift that back toward the boiler, which then allowed us to bring down our ask for the special building fund a little bit.”

The board also voted to approve the interlocal agreement with the Village of Callaway for the use of the Community Center. The cost to the district is $7,500 for the year. “We get to use the center for practices and games, and kind of get first dibs on the facility during the school year,” Hanson explained. “This is something we do every year.”