Carrollton School Board welcomes new board member
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By Carmen Ensinger
A new board member was sworn in at the June 23 regular meeting of the Carrollton School Board. At a prior special meeting, the board recommended Billy Springman for the vacant seat.
Springman, 20, a 2023 graduate of Carrollton High School, is filling the seat left vacant since the last election when Steve Adcock didn’t run for re-election and no one else ran for his seat.
Following Springman taking his seat, the board approved the amended budget, which the board had also discussed at a previous meeting.
Carrollton Superintendent Jason Bauer said this year’s budget is going to be a balanced budget with the Education Fund being in the black by a little over $200,000 and the Transportation Fund barely in the black by a mere $21.
The Operation and Maintenance Fund is going to be in the black by a significant amount, but Bauer said that will be short lived.
“That fund is in the black by a significant amount because we received a pretty large rebate check for the solar project,” he said. “But, in December, we have to turn around and make a payment of $1.44 million to pay for that so when you look at next year’s budget it might look a little worse, but for right now it looks pretty good.”
Overall, with all the funds combined, the projected cash in the bank at the end of June, was $3.5 million.
The high school parking lot will be getting a much needed makeover this summer. The board had a facilities meeting prior to the regular board meeting where they discussed four different options to redo the parking lot. The board opted for option number one which was from Stutz Excavating to grate the parking lot, put a single layer of seal coat and tar and a layer of light chip for a cost of $23,030.
The board accepted two donations from Hawk Pride.
“One of them was for some signage for the materials that will be used to put up the naming of the football field,” Bauer said. “The other was for a machine to be used to paint the football field.”
The board also approved membership into the Southern Illinois Purchasing Cooperative.
“This is another free purchasing cooperative that schools can use to buy materials for smaller type projects,” Bauer said. “It is free and it just gives us another option. There is no obligation to buy anything – it is just another option to look into pricing to see if we can get a better deal on things.”
Next year, the district will have to do the 10 year Health, Life, Safety Survey. As such, the board approved a contract with MMLP Architects out of Springfield, at a cost of $6,870 to do this survey.
“This is the same firm that the district has used for a number of years,” Bauer said. “So, they already have all of the blueprints and designs of our buildings. Basically they will go through and look for items that need to be addressed.”
The board approved the purchase of a Zamboni machine for the high school at a cost of $13,249.49. Bauer said this is a machine to do the floors and the machine they currently have is on its last leg and so old that they can no longer get parts for it.
In new business, they approved the renewal of the property/casualty insurance and workman’s comp through Prairie State Insurance Cooperative in the amount of $34,188.68.
They accepted bids from Prairie Farms for milk and Kohl’s Wholesale for frozen food.
“We only had one bid on each of those items,” Bauer said. “We are always limited each year.”
The board approved the Consolidated District Plan, which must be completed and approved every year in order for the district to get grant funding.
Following closed session, the board:
Approved the retirement, effective 2028-29 school year of high school chemistry teacher Amy Struble.
Approved Sarah Adcock and Craig Carmody as bus drivers for the 2025-26 school year.
Approved Emily Eitzenhefer as special education teacher at the grade school
