School controversies: MLSD board passes a budget in heated meeting

MOSES LAKE — During a heavily attended regular meeting Thursday evening that was at times angry and contentious, the Moses Lake School Board approved a 2021-22 school year budget, and voted to sell $39 million in construction bonds and to look outside the district for an interim superintendent.

The board voted 4-1 to approve a $129.8 million budget for the upcoming school year, with board member Elliott Goodrich the sole dissenting voice.

“We are budgeting for activities that the community chose not to support with the levy,” Goodrich said.

The approved budget was $2.5 million less than the original proposal, unveiled two weeks ago, which assumed the passage of the three-year, $7 million local levy measure. The levy, which is used to fund activities, such as athletics, not covered by state funds, failed at the ballot box this month, with 52% of district voters rejecting it.

The district also stands to lose an additional $7 million per school year in state matching funds. However, because the current levy is collected through the end of December, the district will only lose roughly $7 million in the upcoming year.

Moses Lake School District Business Manager Stefanie Lowry said the district is budgeting for 8,035 students this school year, and believes actual attendance will likely hit that figure or be slightly higher.

“We’re looking at higher enrollment of high school students, but until we see the whites of their eyes, we won’t really know,” Lowry said.

The board OK’d the sale of $39 million in construction bonds to finish construction of the “Real World Academy” — the place-holder name for the project-based learning school now under construction. At its previous meeting, the board reduced the bond sale from $59 million, deciding not to sell the $20 million needed for work on Moses Lake High School and other district-wide projects until formal plans were in place.

In February 2017, a slim majority of district voters approved $135 million in construction bonds for a new high school and another elementary school. However, because the construction costs of both Groff Elementary School — which is set to formally open on Sept. 7 — and the new high school have been kept low, the district will not need to issue $46 million in bonds, Lowry said.

The board also voted 4-1 — with Goodrich again as the only “no” vote — to conduct a four-week search outside the school district over the course of September to look for an interim superintendent following the announcement earlier this week of Josh Meek’s departure.

“I believe we have qualified candidates within the district,” Goodrich said. “Four weeks is a long time at the start of the school year.”

According to the board’s vice president, Susan Freeman, Assistant Superintendent Carole Meyer will be the district’s acting superintendent until an interim is hired.

However, concerns about new statewide mandates that students wear masks at school, the teaching of critical race theory to both staff and students, and the last three weeks of closed-door meetings concerning Meek, have left many who attended Thursday night’s meeting frustrated. Several spoke during the public comment portion of the board meeting, expressing their sense the board members and district officials are not responsive to parents and taxpayers and the district is wasting taxpayer money.

Jon Smith, who has attended nearly every regular school board meeting for the past few months, said rejecting the local levy was the only leverage voters had, given what he said was the district’s unresponsiveness, and wondered if the MLSD would be able to pass a forensic audit.

“The district needs a serious overhaul,” Smith said.

David Hunt, who has also attended a number of board meetings in the past few months, said there is nothing normal about forcing children to wear masks for hours every day, or live and work in isolation and fear of contamination.

Hunt compared proposals from the previous regular meeting to close public access to the high school swimming pool and theater to reduce the budget to an attempt to bully voters who rejected the levy.

“You have a $16 million surplus, but you’re threatening to take away our sports and the use of facilities we already pay for,” Hunt said.

But it was resident Kenneth Rosecrans who, at the very beginning of the meeting, said what a great many in attendance likely believed.

“The public has lost faith in the school board,” Rosecrans said. “You have failed, and you have lost our trust.”

Following the public comment period, which went on for nearly a half-hour, Goodrich said the district’s lack of transparency “has been terrible,” citing an attempt by the board earlier this year to pass a transgender student policy without public comment, as well as struggle with other board members — aiming his comments at Freeman and board president Vickey Melcher — and the district’s attorney to get information about financial concerns surrounding the superintendent.

“This is your money,” Goodrich said. “You should have a right to know what is being done with it.”

Melcher responded to Goodrich by saying she and Freeman were also “disgusted” with the situation, and Melcher was particularly “disgusted” with “a rogue board member” who operated “beyond legal authority” and “refuses to support majority decisions.”

At several points during the exchange, audience members booed Melcher and called on her to resign. In turn, Melcher banged her gavel and abruptly ended the meeting, which lasted nearly two hours.

Charles H. Featherstone can be reached at cfeatherstone@columbiabasinherald.com.