The Bastrop Advertiser (Bastrop, Tex.), Vol. 155, No. 34, Ed. 1 Saturday, June 21, 2008 Page: 1 of 12
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SATURDAY, JUNE 21, 2008
500
Wk Bastrop Sducrtiscr
Texas' Oldest Weekly Newspaper Since March 1, 1853 Semi-Weekly Since Sept. 5, 1977
Volume 155, Number 34
Bastrop, Texas
14 pages in two sections
B J passes 2008/2009 tax rate o $1,50
By Terry Hagerty
Assistant Editor
The Bastrop school board on Tuesday
unanimously adopted the district's 2008-09
budget, which will include a property tax
rate of $1.50 per hundred dollars valuation.
The tax rate consists of funds needed for
maintenance and operations, often referred
to as the "M&O" tax rate — $1.04 for next
year — plus the debt service tax rate of 46
cents.
The preliminary total of property valua-
tions within the district is estimated to be
$2.17 billion.
Revenues for the General Fund are esti-
mated to be $58.33 million, versus expendi-
tures of $59.46 million.
The district will see a total deficit of
$1.43 million, which includes $306,000 of
operating transfers. The deficit will be made
up from the fund balance.
The district proposed fund balance at the
conclusion of the budget year is expected to
be $14.78 million.
State aid is expected to be approximately
$30.44 million, compared to 2007-08 state
aid of $28.95 million.
Estimated enrollment for 2008-09 is
8,834 with an average daily attendance of
8,050.
The district estimates it will receive
$627,000 for its average daily attendance.
At Tuesday's meeting board members
discussed measures to increase attendance
including the possibility of adding truancy
officers for the district.
The budget includes a $1,000 salary
increase for teachers.
Starting teachers (0 years experience with
a bachelor's degree) will make $40,000;
master's degree — $40,750; doctorate
degree — $41,000.
Teachers with five years experience and a
bachelor's degree will make $40,910; mas-
ter's degree — $41,660; doctorate —
$41,910."
Teachers with 10 years experience and a
bachelor's degree will make $44,327; mas-
ter's degree — $45,077; doctorate —
$45,237.
thagerty@bastropadvertiser.com
Hittiir the books
this summer
tii
// -
t//,
Students are flocking to the Bastrop
Public Library's summer reading pro-
gram. Chris Aldridge, above, enjoys a
quiet moment reading a good book.
Christina Gomez has a good supply of
books ready to take home. (See Bastrop
Living on page 8A for story and photos)
Bastrop Advertiser photos/Terry Hagerty
Smithville ISD to charge $15
fee for student cell phone use
By Jacqueline Davis
Staff Writer
Smithville High School students
caught text messaging during class are
in for a rude awakening when school
starts up again this August.
On Monday,
the Smithville
school board
approved a revi-
sion to the high
school's Student
Code of Conduct
charging a $15
fee before a stu-
dent can retrieve
cell phones or
other potentially
distracting
devices like iPods
or MP3 players.
It was already
common practice
for students to
have their cell
phones picked up
by teachers if the
they were turned
on or being used by
a student during
class, said
Principal Jason
Hewitt, but the
school has never before charged a fee.
Students are allowed to have cell
phones at school, but they can't be on
in the middle of class, Hewitt said.
"What's changed is that if kids are
caught using them, we take it up from
them, and we are going to charge a $15
fine for when parents pick them up,"
said Superintendent Gary Sage. "We
didn't seem to be getting anywhere
before with this. Maybe now it will
wake people up that students can't
have (cell phones) out or on."
Bastrop Advertiser photo illustration/Terry Hagerty
Smithville ISD students or parents will pay a $15 charge to pick-up cell
phones confiscated in class under a new policy passed by the school board
Monday night.
The board also approved a revision
to the Student Athletic Handbook
regarding what teachers and coaches
described as inappropriate Myspace
pages, particularly for Lady Tiger ath-
letes.
District sees $105K
increase in project
By Terry Hagerty
Assistant Editor
"We've had a couple of instances
that we've had athletes that have been
seen on a Myspace site holding or
drinking a beer, which is of course
against the athletic code," Sage said,
not to mention a Class C misdemeanor.
"If they were found on Internet behav-
ing in a maimer that was outside what a
Smithville
athlete was
supposed to
be represent,
they can be
taken off the
team. Little
kids look up
to our high
school ath-
letes. If they
were to see
something
less than
appropriate,
that wouldn't
be good."
Sage said
coaches dis-
c i p 1 i n e d
some stu-
dents last
school year
after seeing
Myspace
pages that did
not fit the
image the school wanted them to por-
tray as student athletes, but that such
discipline needed to be "on the books"
for next year.
jdavis@bastropadvertiser.com
Trying to get construction
completed on relatively
short notice has added
$105,000 to the cost of
upgrading athletic facilities
at Bastrop High School.
The district will have to
pay the extra money to com-
plete the conversion of the
school's old weight room to
a new varsity boys locker
room, in time for the start of
school.
The work is part of an
overall upgrade of athletic
facilities proposed this past
spring by new Athletic
Director Gerald Perry and
approved by the Board of
Education.
Perry said on several
occasions he wants to bring
the district's athletic facili-
ties "up to 5-A standards."
In a memorandum to the
board dated June 11, Frank
Cloud, the district's bond
construction manager, said
he temporarily halted work
at BHS because bids on
remaining work on the new
varsity boys locker room
came in higher than he,
Peny and Chief Operations
Officer Henry Gideon
thought they would be.
"In reviewing the bids . ..
the variance in the actual bid
price versus the initial cost
estimates provided to you by
the architects, and by Coach
Peny, are largely due to the
fact that we are paying a pre-
mium for construction costs
because our window of com-
pletion is short," Cloud told
the board.
The board approved
$254,550 in May for conver-
sion of the weight room to a
locker room. The money was
approved before the actual
bid came in from Braun and
Butler, the contractor for the
project.
The district has already
spent $95,834 of the
$254,550 approved by the
board. That left a balance of
$158,716 for the remainder
of the work by Braun &
Butler.
The bid for completing
the work came in at
$263,432, or an additional
$104,000.
"Because of the extreme-
ly short time-line, we are
using the Job Order
Contracting methodology to
complete work which we
cannot do with our mainte-
nance staff," Cloud told the
board.
Cloud said, "We will need
to resume work no later than
June 23 in order to complete
these renovations by the start
of the school year."
Gideon told the board,
"We thought we had initially
over-estimated the cost of
the project."
Cloud added, "The bid (to
finish the work) came in a
whole lot higher than we
ever thought it would be."
Gideon said when con-
struction contractors are
asked to bid on projects that
have a "short window" to
finish, the companies may
have to juggle resources
already committed to other
projects. The board unani-
mously approved the addi-
tional funds.
thagerty@bastropadver-
tiser.com
inside
P Mural stays at BHS 5A
■ Family Crisis Center starts
Address Confidentiality Prog ram...5A
■ BHS grad gets scholarship 8A
weather! index
■ Saturday's fore-
cast:
Scattered
thunder-
storms
High: 96
Low: 70°
Rain: 40%
F
Classified ads 1B
Looking Ahead 2A
Community 3A
Letters 4A
Sports 6A
Religion 7A
Next week:
AUSTIN COMMUNITY NEWSPAPERS
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7 65668 78602 3
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Hagerty, Terry. The Bastrop Advertiser (Bastrop, Tex.), Vol. 155, No. 34, Ed. 1 Saturday, June 21, 2008, newspaper, June 21, 2008; Bastrop, Texas. (https://texashistory.unt.edu/ark:/67531/metapth252488/m1/1/: accessed May 1, 2024), University of North Texas Libraries, The Portal to Texas History, https://texashistory.unt.edu; crediting Bastrop Public Library.