Fuhr reelected as Moses Lake School Board chair

MOSES LAKE — Kevin Fuhr has been reelected for a new term as Moses Lake School Board president. Shannon Hintz was reelected as vice president.

Board members voted 4-0 to retain the current officers without discussion during the regular meeting Thursday. Paul Hill is the board’s legislative representative and also retained his position.

In other business, Stefanie Lowry, the district’s director of finance, gave the board a budget update through the end of October.

“So far, our expenses are slightly higher than they were at this time last year,” Lowry said.

Expenses usually run about 16% of the district budget each month, Lowry said, but for October 2022 are at about 18% of the budget.

“The reason for that is that we had some curriculum costs upfront that we paid, as well as our insurance renewal (which occurs) early in the year. Otherwise (expenses) are tracking where we would expect them to.”

Lowry reviewed local tax revenues in more detail. They pay for the district’s maintenance and special programs levy and outstanding construction bonds, both of which were approved by voters in previous elections.

“At the end of October, there was just over $1.2 million left to collect for the 2022 taxes. We should see the majority of that come in in November and December. Historically we’ve always collected about 97 to 98% of those tax collections by the end of December,” Lowry said.

The combined rate for the levy and bond has been $2.65 to $2.68 per $1,000 of assessed property value over the last three years, she said.

The bond was approved in 2017, and so far has paid for the construction of Groff Elementary and Vanguard Academy.

“We are planning on selling the remaining $46 million in outstanding bonds,” Lowry said. “We’ll probably look at doing that in the spring as we move forward with (a 12th elementary school) and other district projects.”

Cheryl Schweizer may be reached at cschweizer@columbiabasinherald.com.

Construction bond status:

$46 million in bonds remaining to be sold

Sale of the bonds could come in spring 2023

Money would be used to pay for work on a new elementary school and other projects