Ten Sleep School Board approves new bus

TEN SLEEP – The Ten Sleep School Board approved the purchase of a new bus, set the hot lunch prices, scheduled the annual budget hearing and approved the 2016-2017 student handbook during their June meeting Monday evening.

“We have received approval from the Transportation Department for 100 percent reimbursement of a new bus. We are asking permission to purchase a 2017 Bluebird Vision 42-passenger. The new bus is to replace the short bus. We have had a lot of mechanical problems with that old bus. This one will be put into service and we will have one of the old ones as a spare,” Ten Sleep Superintendent Jimmy Phelps said.

The cost of the bus is $93,215. “There would be five annual payments of $20,027.89. The first payment should not be due until next fiscal year. There are five payments and they come at the end of the 12- month period. And since we would not be receiving the bus until the fall, the first payment should not be due until after July 1, of next year,” Phelps said. “We currently have two lease payments, ones for a 2012 (bus) and the other is a 2015(bus). The 2012 next year will be the last year that we are paying on it, so that will drop off at the end of this next fiscal year. Then we will pick up this new one, so we will continue to have two payments,” he added.

Dropping the one bus and adding the other will not affect the budget. “We are a year behind on the reimbursement so we will just continue like we have been, it won’t be like it’s costing us anymore because one will go off and the other will come on, but we will be getting reimbursed for the one that went off first year we make the payment on the new one. We shouldn’t notice a difference in our budget,” Ten Sleep School Business Manager Janet Collen said.

Ten Sleep School hot lunches will continue at the price that they were last year. The price per lunch for student K-6 is $2, 7-12 $2.50 and extra milk will be $0.25. “Last year, 2015-2016, the school subsidized the school lunch program $70,000 and the same amount is in the budget for this year, 2016-2017,” Collen said.

The Ten Sleep annual budget hearing will be held on Tuesday, July 19. “Our regular meeting will be at 7 p.m. and we will stop what we are doing to have our budget hearing at 8 p.m. and after go back to whatever our agenda is,” Ten Sleep School Board member Terril Mills said.

The board approved the 2016-2017 student handbook. “You guys approve the student handbook every summer before we publish it. The only changes in the student handbook from last year to this coming year would be the drug policy that you approved a few months ago and the updating of the staff names and teachers names and those things,” Phelps said.

The changes to the drug policy were approved during the February Ten Sleep School Board meeting. Phelps said, last spring our board approved changes in our drug testing policy.  Some of those changes include:

— Testing participants from each activity that is in season at the time the tests are conducted.

— Using a third party administrator to conduct the tests.

— Testing may be by breath, saliva, hair, or urinalysis.

— Consequences of positive tests are progressively more severe until the fourth positive test results in ineligibility for extracurricular activities for the remainder of the student’s career at the school district.