Nevada County Picayune and Gurdon Times Newspaper Archive

School board will invest bond funds

The Gurdon School District has received monies from a bond issue to build a new Gurdon High School auditorium. The district will now temporarily invest the money in an effort to add to the building fund.

During its meeting on Tuesday, July 17, Superintendent Bobby Smithson told the Gurdon School Board that the district has received $1,926,613.23 from the bond sale. The board voted previously to invest the money in a certificate of deposit until the funds were actually needed.

Upon looking at the districts financial statements, Smithson said he recommended putting additional money from the districts general fund with the bond money to bring the investment up to an even $2 million.

Although the district does all of its banking at the First State Bank of Gurdon, Smithson said he felt like the district should earn as much as possible by requesting bids from each of Gurdons banks. He presented the banks bids at the meeting.

First State Bank of Gurdon bid an interest rate of 4.007 percent to hold the $2 million for 30 days. U.S. Bank bid 4.95 percent.

I think we owe it to our patrons to earn as much as possible, Smithson said.

The board agreed to deposit the money at U.S. Bank since it submitted the highest interest rate. The district will earn an approximate $8,000 per month with the deposit. At the end of the 30 day period, the district will reinvest the funds if they are still not needed. Smithson said it is possible that the funds could be invested for up to 90 days if the project has not yet be let for bids.

The districts architect hopes to have the plans for the auditorium drawn and ready to let for bids by September.

Smithson said once the plans are ready, the bids will likely have to be accepted with a base bid for the auditorium part of the project and two add-alternates that will include the alumni room/administrative suite and a band and choir facility.

The add alternates allow the school board to leave a part of the project off if funds are not available to construct the entire facility.

Smithson said he had planned to leave the band and choir facility off of the project for the time being. He said the district has nice facilities at the current time, but Anita Cabe who is actively seeking private funds to help the construction effort really wants to build the entire facility at one time.

Smithson said Cabe has about $500,000 pledged towards the construction of the facility, but only about $100,000 has been collected thus far.

Also during the meeting, Smithson went over a list of projects that he would like to see completed in the district during the 2007-2008 school year. The projects include repairing and resealing the parking lots at the high school, football field and primary school for $25,000; placing lights in the canopy between the high school and middle school for $19,000; and extending vent pipes at the primary and high school buildings for $10,000.

Smithson said he had hoped to receive some state funding for these projects, but it now appears that since the district has not previously included these items on funding requests to the state that no money will be available.

It might be possible to receive state help with the projects if the district were to wait until the 2008-2009 funding year, Smithson said, but the projects do not need to wait.

Id like to do all three of those things if I can find $54,000, he said.

Also during the meeting, the board:

 heard a report from district curriculum coordinator Bonnie Ross concerning the districts Benchmark test scores;

 approved the transfer of a student from the Arkadelphia School District to the Gurdon School District; and

 entered into executive session to discuss the resignation of two employees and the hiring of their replacements.