Once Cent Sales Tax funding projects at Carrollton

By Carmen Ensinger

When one thinks of a penny, one doesn’t think a penny can buy very much, but the Greene County One-Cent Sales Tax that goes to help fund Greene County School Districts is proving to be very beneficial to the Carrollton School District.
Carrollton Superintendent Mark Halwachs reported at the Feb. 28 School Board meeting that the district received over $40,000 in penny sales tax money over the past two months. The check for January was in the amount of $19,387 and the check for February was in the amount of $20,637.
“This sales tax money is going to afford us to be able to do projects that we would otherwise not be able to do around the district,” Halwachs said. “We are going to be using this sales tax money to do the asbestos abatement at the high school.”
Halwachs said that last month he reported that the district had reported fraud on its checking account and that they were issued new checks.
“Well, the first check we issued was altered and now we have fraud on this new account,” Halwachs said. “The check was for our teacher’s union dues going to Chicago. We talked to our fraud people through the union and a bunch of union dues checks have been stolen. We just know it has been creating a nightmare for Nancy (bookkeeper).”
Halwachs reminded board members that the Economic Interest Statement forms are due soon and that they are different from last year.
“They were rushed through the legislature and they are a mess,” Halwachs said. “They are very difficult to fill out and there has been no guidance from the State. They were supposed to give guidance but it has not been released. There are terms not defined in there.”
Halwachs said they have until May 1 to fill it out and get it into County Clerk Debbie Banghart and he recommends holding onto it until they hear more and perhaps they get more guidance.
Halwachs reported that he received two Freedom of Information Requests (FOIA)since the last board meeting – one from Marisa Rosentreter and one from a company called Juno.
“Rosentreter requited information on the mask lawsuit which was an extreme FOIA request,” Halwachs said. “We ended up having to ask for an extension because it took us nine days to complete it. It ended up costing the district $4,700 to complete this FOIA request because our lawyers had to do a lot of the work.”
The other FOIA request from Juno was for information regarding students when they graduated from high school.
The board approved a request by Pre-K Coordinator Sarah Schmidt to attend a Pre-K Conference in Schaumburg on March 15-16. The conference is for the professional development of educators of pre-k through third grade.
“It is an opportunity for coordinators, administrators, staff, and home visiting staff to learn new trends, new research and new products that are out there,” Schmidt said. “They have six to eight sessions a day you can attend and an intended audience for each session. This year some of the sessions are just for the coordinators. Last year I did it virtually so I am glad to be back in person. I’m not taking anyone else because we couldn’t get any subs but my goal is to bring back a whole lot of information.”
Schmidt went on to say that the cost of the trip is picked up by the Pre-K grant and will not cost the district anything.
By using One Cent Sales Tax money to do the renovations at the high school, this has allowed the district to take the money that it would have otherwise had to use to do those renovations and put that money towards abatement of the 2017 and 2019 General Obligation Bonds that were issued.
Following a closed session, the board returned and accepted the intended resignation of Halwachs at the end of the 2023-24 school year, giving the school district roughly two years to find a new superintendent.
They also accepted the resignation of custodian Mark Sharrow, effective Feb. 22. They then employed Joshua Talley as his replacement.
Two volunteer assistant coaches were also approved: Justin Pohlman as high school baseball coach and Rob Kaiser as high school trap coach.