Sports: IMS basketball hosts Fort Scott See B1
The Weekender Saturday, November 8, 2014
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Iola may see water rate hike
Life on the road
By RICHARD LUKEN The Iola Register
JOSH, A Humboldt native, and Jessa, originally from Wichita, met while working at Kansas State University. Josh is a web developer, Jessa a
Iola City Council members will discuss Monday whether to approve hikes in the city’s water and wastewater rates. A brief history: Water rates were increased when the city opened its new water plant in 2005, which proved insufficient to cover all of the costs. From 2008 to 2011, the water fund operated with a deficit, averaging $238,000 a year (15.6 percent), relying on transfers from other utility funds to stay afloat. Rates were increased in both 2011 and 2012 so revenues would match higher costs. However, after three years of dealing with the 2012 rates, it has become apparent they still do not match “the cost of basic maintenance of the sewer and water utilities,” City Administrator Carl Slaugh wrote. Slaugh estimated the water fund will bring in about $2.075 million in 2015, while expenditures are pegged at $2.129 million, a difference of $54,000.
See WORKS | Page A5
See WATER | Page A6
Josh and Jessa Works enjoy their Airstream on the road with their son, Jack. The couple are the managers of the Works of Art Studio and Gallery. COURTESY PHOTO
Works family travels nation, settles in Humboldt By RICK DANLEY The Iola Register
I
n a roll call of the coolest parents, Josh and Jessa Works, the new managers at Humboldt’s Works of Art Studio & Gallery and the adjacent Frame Shop, have to rank near the top. The young couple, along with their 6-year-old son,
Jack, have recently returned to Humboldt after three years living on the road, crisscrossing the country with an impeccably furnished, 27-foot Airstream trailer in tow. They traveled, largely, from one state or national park to another, spending a period of time in every state but three. Jack, now a kindergartner at Humboldt Elementary School, was only 2 when the Workses traded in their house,
their possessions, and the increasing constrictions of domestic life, for a chance to explore the country on a fulltime basis. He spent his first years, from 2 to 5, crossing from one painterly landscape into another — there are pictures online of the threesome hunting shells on a white sand beach, bundled up in a mountain forest, casting long shadows at the edge of a desert highway — but recently the
Workses decided they wanted to give him an opportunity to go to a real school and to be with kids his own age, an experience which, three months in, Jack is relishing.
Iolans realize break in property taxes By BOB JOHNSON The Iola Register
Iola property owners had a pleasant surprise when tax statements arrived this week. Levies, and tax bills, were lower than a year ago, mainly because of additional state aid for school districts’ local option budgets. When the Supreme Court forced the Legislature to increase spending on schools earlier this year, state aid to support LOBs was ordered to be increased from 78 percent to 100 percent of what is dictated by school finance equalization. That is a component of school finance from the 1992 law that made the state responsible for all general fund revenue. LOBs are an offshoot that give boards of education opportunity to enhance general fund spending with locally raised revenue supported by state aid. LOBs are determined by a percentage of the general fund, which now may be as much as 32 percent. USD 257’s LOB is at 30 percent of its general fund. With the change in state funding, the district’s levy went from 52.389 to
44.426 mills, including a 20mill statewide levy all Kansas property owners pay to support general funds of all districts and 8 mills for the district’s capital outlay fund.
What that did for Iola taxpayers was help lower their overall property tax levy from 183.97 to 174.991.
Honoring veterans Taxpayers elsewhere in the county had similar reductions in tax bills. What that did for Iola taxpayers was help lower their overall property tax levy from 183.97 to 174.991 mills. The school district’s nearly 8-mill reduction was the largest among taxing entities that affect Iolans. Allen County’s levy dropped 3.065 mills; Allen Community College’s went down .018 of a mill; the Extension Service district’s dropped an additional .068 of a mill. See TAXES | Page A6
Quote of the day Vol. 117, No. 11
Downtown Iola merchants have displays of veterans and active soldiers in their store windows. Veterans Day events are at 11 a.m. today on the square. REGISTER/RICHARD LUKEN
ROTARY
Digging into Civil War history By BOB JOHNSON The Iola Register
With time on his hands after retiring from a 21-year career in the Army, John Jackson, a new supervisor at Iola Walmart, found graves at cemeteries in and near his hometown of Chanute fascinating.
Mainly, it was graves of Civil War veterans that piqued his curiosity. “I was looking for something to do,” Jackson said. He started taking photographs of the veterans’ tombstones and then researched their stories. Today he has catalogued veterans’ graves in 200 cemeteries in 75 Kansas
“Do the things you know, and you shall learn the truth you need to know.” — Louisa May Alcott 75 Cents
counties. “I’ve been as far north as Marysville and as far west as Dodge City,” he said. Jackson outlined his hobby for Iola Rotarians Thursday, and told a few stories from his research. In one case he discovered a See ROTARY | Page A6
Hi: 57 Lo: 38 Iola, KS