L A W R E NC E
Journal-World
®
75 cents
LJWorld.com
WEDNESDAY • JANUARY 7 • 2015
ROCK CHALK PARK
Audit moves ahead; so does $1M payment By Chad Lawhorn Twitter: @clawhorn_ljw
Mike Yoder/Journal-World Photo
RHIANNA JONES, LEFT, A FIRST-GRADER at Broken Arrow Elementary School, and Ashlynn Tell hum through handmade kazoos Tuesday in class. The class was studying how vibrations work in creating sounds. Voters will decide whether the district can maintain its local option budget at its current level and retain about $1.4 million in funding.
Doll answers questions on local option budget election By Elliot Hughes Twitter: @elliothughes12
Registered voters living within the boundaries of the Lawrence school district can expect to have some mail waiting for them by the end of this week. Today, the district will send out the materials for the first mailballot election in Douglas County, which will decide whether the district can maintain its local option budget at its current level and retain about $1.4 million in funding. Voters have until noon Jan. 27 to return, not postmark, their ballots to the Douglas County clerk’s office, 1100 Massachusetts St. The mailing comes with a postage-paid envelope to return the ballot. Voters can also hand in the ballot at the clerk’s office. A local option budget is funding that is raised by local property taxes for school districts. The size of a district’s local option budget can be no larger than 33 percent
(the maximum was 31 percent until a year ago) of its general operating fund, which for Lawrence is about $72.2 million. The idea behind local option budgets is to give Doll districts and voters some local control over school funding. The election stems from a new law the Legislature passed last April that changed how state funding for schools is calculated. It stipulated that students enrolled in virtual schools would no longer count toward a district’s official enrollment. That and other factors cost the Lawrence district about $1.8 million in funding. However, the state then created a path for districts across the state to recoup at least some of the funds lost at the expense of the new law. It allowed districts, for one year only, to raise their local option bud-
Business Classified Comics Deaths
High: 10
Low: -3
Today’s forecast, page 8A
2A 1C-7C 7A 2A
Events listings Horoscope Opinion Puzzles
Please see AUDIT, page 8A
Be prepared for bitter cold today
gets from 31 percent to 33 percent by vote of their school boards. In September, the Lawrence school board voted to do just that, effectively recovering $1.4 million. But if a district wants to keep its local option budget at 33 percent beyond year one — in Lawrence’s case, retaining that $1.4 million every year — it needs the approval of registered voters living within the district, by mail. The JournalWorld caught up with Lawrence schools Superintendent Rick Doll about the election:
Staff Reports
N
ortheast Kansas is in for a cold couple of days. The National Weather Service in Topeka predicts a wind chill of 15 to 20 degrees below zero by this morning and continuing until late in the day. Wind chills of minus 15 to 20 are expected again Thursday morning. Public schools in Tonganoxie, Basehor-Linwood, Oskaloosa and McLouth announced they would close today because of the cold. Veritas Christian School also is closed. An “arctic air mass” will move into the area Tuesday night, bringing a bitter combination of single-digit temperatures and northerly winds of 15 to 20 mph.
Why does the district want voters to approve a 33 percent local option budget? We want it to pass so we can maintain our current class sizes and our current programming for students. How will a “yes” or a “no” vote affect the dollar amount of taxes
Please see COLD, page 2A
Please see BALLOT, page 5A
INSIDE
Cold
City commissioners agreed Tuesday to conduct an audit of the no-bid contract for infrastructure work at Rock Chalk Park, but before that audit is completed, the city will make another $1 million payment that largely will satisfy the city’s total due on the controversial project. On a 5-0 vote, commissioners agreed to begin negotiations with Tennessee-based McDonald & Associates to conduct an audit of the nearly $12 million worth of roads, CITY parking lots, sewer lines and COMMISSION other infrastructure work that has been built at the northwest Lawrence sports complex that was a partnership between the city, Kansas University Endowment Association and a private firm led by
5A, 2B Sports 8C Television 6A 8C
1B-4B 8A, 2B
A gift to KU
Vol.157/No.7 20 pages
An accounting firm that donated $300,000 toward construction of a new home for the KU School of Business sees its gift as an investment. Page 3A
Join us at Facebook.com/LJWorld and Twitter.com/LJWorld
free state digital presents the 2015
NEW YEAR + NEW YOU to enter:
M A K E O V E R
Nominate yourself or another deserving individual by telling us in 100 words or less why you or someone else needs a New Year’s makeover. Winning entry will be chosen by a panel of sponsor judges. Enter online at www. lawrence.com/newyou/ before midnight, January 17th.
C O N T E S T the prizes:
Body Boutique: Three Month Membership With Unlimited Power Training; Images Salon: Manicure, Pedicure, Haircut & Color; Mango Tan: One Month Level One Unlimited Tanning Or Spray Tanning; Weaver’s: Make-Up Consultation & Application
S P O N S O R E D
B Y