Dieker to become JWP business manager

Wendy Dieker, Janesville-Waldorf-Pemberton’s district operations coordinator, will be taking the place of Matt Moline as business manager on July 1, according to an announcement made during the JWP school board meeting on Monday, June 12. Moline will be taking a position at Waseca High School.

According to superintendent Jeremy Erler, the district decided to move Dieker into the position because not only does she know the school well already, but hiring her will admittedly save the school a “significant amount of money.”

“She doesn’t currently have the experience that Matt has,” Erler explained. “That means she will be starting at a lower pay level.”

The position change will leave a vacancy in Dieker’s current position; Erler told the board he is working with CliftonLarsonAllen of Mankato and School Management Services out of Byron to see whether some of those tasks, including payroll, can be contracted from outside.

“If we were to do that, we’d still need to get the numbers from them for cost,” he said.

If the school does not reach an agreement with either organization, Erler said that he and Dieker may split the district operations coordinator duties.

The board grudgingly approved an agreement with Taher Foods for food services for the 2023-24 year. Erler claimed that he didn’t hear a lot of feedback from the surrounding school districts about any of the problems with Taher that JWP was having.

In the end, board members concluded they didn’t have any other options. “To go out back on our own would be a significant change for us,” Erler pointed out.

Board member Kevin Born wanted assurance that Brett Bauer, the district manager for Taher, was in agreement that changes needed to be made. According to Erler, not only did Bauer agree, but he was on board with the district making a food committee to report to Taher what the food quality is like during the school year.

Erler suggested that if Taher foods isn’t fulfilling the school’s wishes at the start of the school year, the board should look for different food services starting this December.

The school approved the preliminary budget for fiscal year 2024. According to projections for the 2023-24 school year, the district is anticipating $10.3 million in revenue, a 4.6 percent increase from 2022-23. At the same time, expenditures will stay about the same at $10.2 million.

The largest revenue loss comes under the federal line item. Moline explained that there was a 45.8 percent decrease in that section because the school will no longer be receiving the direct federal support prompted by Covid-19. However, the basic skills line item went up 274 percent.

The school district will see much less debt, especially in capital expenditures as it pays off its air quality project in the coming years. That line item will go from $879,000 in 2022-23 to $125,620 in 2023-24, an 85-percent decrease. Miscellaneous expenses went down 79 percent as well. The only significant increase is in purchased services, which went up 11.4 percent.

Salaries overall will go up about 8.35 percent. The biggest change in salaries will be a 12.8 percent increase paid toward teacher salaries. “The increase is due to teachers going through several lane changes,” Moline explained.

Lane changes are when a teacher advances his or her education level (receiving a Masters Degree in their subject, for example).

Other salaries (such as custodians) will increase by 3.9 percent, while administrative salary expenditures will stay relatively the same.

The board chose to postpone calling an election for voters to approve changing the authorized use of bond proceeds totaling approximately $1.9 million to whatever the district sees fit.

The reason for postponement was to get the wording on the ballot correct. It currently suggests that they will use part (if not most) of the money on repairing the school roof. While it’s been a topic of discussion, the board wanted the wording changed to use the roof repair as an example, not something that is already planned.

The board then approved the district’s membership in the Minnesota state High School League for 2023-24.