At the last school board meeting, Superintendent Theron Schutte proposed a stadium project to the board that would get the facilities up to date. The project would focus on installing FieldTurf and expanding the field to meet regulation soccer field size requirements, along with a number of smaller updates, including a new digital video display scoreboard, a track replacement with a digital timing system, home side bleacher replacement, a new sound system, a new press box and several other improvements.

Schutte proposed to use SAVE, which are available for school infrastructure projects as well as for annual technology replacement. The public hearing on the proposed use of the funds was held during Tuesday night’s board meeting, and James Christensen, a MCSD parent, as well as a MHS Spanish teacher, tennis coach and assistant football coach commented during the hearing.

“I’m here today to voice my support for the use of SAVE funds for the athletic facility and infrastructure project,” Christensen said.

He felt that updated facilities would make the activities that take place in the stadium more appealing to students, and in addition to having higher participation rates, the proposed updates would also make it safer for everyone involved.

Marshalltown Community School District Director of Business Operations Paulette Newbold reviewed the 2022 Fund Financial Report with the school board at the regularly scheduled meeting Tuesday night.

“Watching my stubborn, 90-year-old grandfather navigate our current bleacher setup is always an interesting thing to behold. Being able to practice on a new turf field would be safer than our current practice field, which suffers greatly from overuse. My son Nile has suffered a torn ACL each of the last two seasons during practice, in part due to some of the holes and divots and depressions found on the field,” Christensen said. “With as many groups utilizing the practice fields, a modern turf field is needed to ensure a safe environment for all of our students to use.”

Christensen was the sole commenter, but many of the MHS coaches sat in on the meeting to watch the proceedings. FEH Design Lead Architect Kevin Eipperle talked about the tentative plan for the stadium later in the meeting.

Eipperle gave a brief overview of the project as a whole and what it would entail, and he said that with everything included, the cost is estimated to be in the $5.5 million to $5.9 million range.

“These are very preliminary designs and cost estimates. When and if we get to the point where we can start to get serious about the details, we’ll be meeting, as we did with the roundhouse phase, to involve coaches and sponsors and getting down to the finer details of the track, the field, the location of some of the special events,” Schutte said.

Schutte said they were hopeful that if bids come in on the low side, they would be able to replace the visitor’s bleachers in addition to the home bleachers, but if that doesn’t end up being the case, Schutte said they would “make provisions” to improve the visitor’s bleachers.

Schutte said they are hoping for the project to be out for bid in February 2023, and they aim to get started on the improvements in May if all goes according to plan.

“This project, obviously, would be a huge upgrade for Marshalltown, but the reality is, and most the people that are in the audience would tell you, it’s simply catching up to where everybody else is at, and providing our student athletes, coaches, sponsors, with equitable opportunity as far as the quality of the facilities go,” Schutte said.

The board approved a resolution supporting the use of SAVE revenue for the stadium project 5-0, with Bonnie Lowry and Leah Stanley absent.

While the key focus of Tuesday night’s discussion was general updates to the stadium facility, the MCSD is also considering the construction of a tornado safe team room in the stadium’s west end zone. The team room would not be paid for with SAVE funds and is dependent on whether or not the district is awarded the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) grant they have applied for.

In addition to discussion of the stadium project, Director of Business Operations Paulette Newbold reviewed the 2022 Fund Financial Report with the board. Newbold said the district had made “considerable progress” on the board’s fiscal management policies.

One of the key topics Newbold focused on during her presentation was the MCSD’s solvency ratio, which is a metric used to measure the ability of the district to meet long-term debt obligations. It only applies to the General Fund, and the board minimum for this ratio is between eight and 10 percent.

“It is one of the two most important financial health indicators for school districts, and the board’s goal since I came in 2018 was to increase our solvency ratio so that we were meeting that board policy minimum, and exceeding that,” Newbold said.

The 2018-2019 solvency ratio was 4.27 percent, and it rose to 4.6 percent during the 2019-2020 fiscal year, before shooting up to 13.8 percent during the 2020-2021 fiscal year. The MCSD’s solvency ratio for fiscal year 2022 was a staggering 20.02 percent.

“We honestly didn’t intend to make this much progress in this short amount of time, but there is a silver lining to the pandemic, and that helped us achieve our goals a lot faster than we otherwise would have. And that’s primarily because of staffing shortages,” Newbold said.

Newbold said expenses went down in fiscal year 2019 and 2020 due to the pandemic, since there weren’t as many people working, and other functions had also been temporarily halted, which helped to increase solvency.

The state median in 2021 was a ratio of 22.2 percent, so the MCSD is still slightly below the state average when it comes to that. Newbold, however, said they have experienced a great deal of growth.

The other key point she touched on was the district’s unspent authority, which refers to the difference between the authorized spending authority and the actual spending in a fiscal year. Newbold said the district has historically had a high unspent authority, and fiscal year 2022 was no different.

The MCSD finished out the fiscal year with an unspent authorized budget ratio of 30.6 percent, as opposed to the 2021 state median of 23.7. It isn’t recommended to surpass 25 percent, but Newbold said it was a “really good problem to have.”

“You have to have the actual money to spend that authority. So, it’s kind of like a credit card. You can go out and spend that, but you still have to have the money to pay the bill,” she said.

Newbold said the two ratios are important to indicate a district’s financial health, and they both looked good as the fiscal year came to a close. They also reviewed individual fund balances with the board as well.

In other business, the board:

• Gave approval to seek authority from the School Budget Review Committee for allowable growth and supplemental aid for a negative special education balance of $927,095.73.

• Heard an update from the student school board representatives.

• Heard an update from Communications Director Adam Sodders.

• Recognized Natalie Andrade and Alexia Garcia for their articles that will be printed in the University of Northern Iowa’s student newspaper and the Bobcat boys golfers for winning the inaugural conference title.

• Approved an amendment to board policy 501.9 Student Absences-excused.

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Contact Susanna Meyer at 641-753-6611 or

smeyer@timesrepublican.com

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