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2021
Volume 34, Issue 39
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August 19, 2021 | 50 Cents
So long, summer
LH INDEPENDENT FILE PHOTO
Treasurer and Chief Financial Officer for the City of Liberty Hill Becky Wilkins was fired Aug. 11. Causes given by the Council included “discourteous conduct and substandard productivity in workmanship”.
Council fires CFO amid questions about missing documents
By RACHEL MADISON Staff Writer “Discourteous conduct and substandard productivity in workmanship” were the causes given by the Council for the termination of the City’s Chief Financial Officer on Aug. 11. Following a 40-minute closed session, the Council voted unanimously to fire Becky Wilkins, who in recent weeks has been at the center of discussion regarding missing financial documents. Earlier this month, an independent auditor told council members that the City’s 2020 audit could not be complete because dozens of documents were missing. Wilkins served as city treasurer and chief financial officer
since December 2018. The motion was made by Council Member Crystal Mancilla and seconded by Council Member Kathy Canady. Mayor Liz Branigan told The Independent that the discourteous conduct Wilkins exhibited included rolling her eyes during city meetings, complaining during council meetings about the incompetence of employees who held the job before her, and not answering questions asked of her. Branigan added that Wilkins had also been working on a complaint against her, but she didn’t know what the purpose of the complaint was or what it was related to.
See WILKINS, Page 8
LHISD Trustees approve $58 million budget for FY ‘21
By CHRISTIAN BETANCOURT Staff Writer The LHISD Board of Trustees on Monday approved a $58 million operating budget for the 2021-2022 fiscal year -- a $10.7 million increase from the current year,. “I’m very excited to present to you the public hearing on the 2021-2022 budget and tax rate,” said LHISD Chief Financial Officer Rosanna Guerrero. Guerrero said the budget took about six months of the staff working together to develop a plan that would allow the district to operate, but it was ever-changing. “A budget is an estimate at a point in time,” she said. “This is a moving target. We take the best data that we have at a point ©2021 The Liberty Hill Independent
in time. We utilize, analyze and project. We’re doing the best that we can with the information we have, but our enrollment is constantly changing.” A new tax rate for the district along with the budget was accepted by a unanimous vote of the Board. “We will reevaluate every year,” said Guerrero. “Based on the calculated property value growth, we can confirm that the proposed tax rate would be $0.8620 (per $100 property valuation), which is a slight reduction from last year. We have reduced the combined tax rate by $0.07 in 2019-2020 and then again, a reduction of $0.11 in 2021. Overall is a commitment that we made to our taxpayers of a no tax rate increase in the upcoming year.” Guerrero said she worked tirelessly with the board and other staff to ensure the schools had everything they needed to operate successfully.
See TRUSTEES, Page 5
School starts today, Aug. 19, for students in the Liberty Hill ISD. School district officials said Wednesday that more than 7,027 were expected on campus today. Of those, Bill Burden Elementary is expecting 811, Liberty Hill Elementary 532, Louine Noble Elementary 579, Rancho Sienna Elementary 779, Santa Rita Elementary 809, Liberty Hill Middle School 917, Santa Rita Middle School 716, and Liberty Hill High School 1,878. Share your first day of school photos with us on Facebook.com/LibertyHillIndependent. (RIGHT) Brothers Landon and Logan Smith, ages 5 and 2, catch themselves after sliding down an inflatable during the City of Liberty Hill’s Back to School
CHRISTIAN BETANCOURT PHOTO
Santa Rita Middle School designed for new teaching techniques
By CHRISTIAN BETANCOURT Staff Writer Students at Santa Rita Middle School will benefit from a school designed with new ways of teaching in mind. The school will showcase a new teaching method where teachers will share students and classrooms. “Teachers can go from class to class without having that wall or barrier between them,” said SRMS Principal Josh Curtis. “It goes back to the philosophy of ‘all means all.’ (Teachers) don’t just have a classroom of kids on their roster. Every student
CHRISTIAN BETANCOURT PHOTO
The new Santa Rita Middle School will feature collaborative spaces for teachers and students. Principal Josh Curtis says educators will work in teacher pods and go to classrooms for instrucSee SANTA RITA, Page 3 tion.
LHISD staff prepares for Day One
By CHRISTIAN BETANCOURT Staff Writer With classes starting today, all departments in the Liberty Hill Independent School District were preparing this week to welcome the Panthers for a new school year. One of the most demanding departments at LHISD -- facilities and maintenance -- works in the shadows making sure everything is ready before children come into the schools. “We’ve transferred everything that we need to the campus to get everything that we need,” said LHISD Director of Facilities Bruce Krueger. “We’re using Noble (Elementary) as a staging area for the new Santa Rita Middle
School. We’re talking about books, trash cans, everything. This is our busy time.” The Maintenance Department led by Krueger prepared for COVID-19 by anticipating and adding extra protection to deal with a different threat last year. “We noticed that we were having problems with flu in the district,” he said. “We are looking for what we could do to help eliminate cross-contamination. We started looking at electrostatic sprayers. What it does is it puts a fine mist, and it sticks to everything it touches, so we bought two of those. We ordered one for each campus, then we ordered two for each campus.” Another thing maintenance did to help with COVID-19
CHRISTIAN BETANCOURT PHOTO
Lead Custodian Zan Bonnet and LHISD Director of Maintenance and Facilities Bruce Krueger deliver chairs to a new classroom in Liberty Hills Middle School to accommodate the growing number of students in the district. infections this year is a change in how hand sanitizing is done in the classrooms. “We purchased alcohol to put in spray bottles, and the teach-
ers spray down the desks and put it in the kids’ hands instead of doing the gel,” said Krueger.
See DAY ONE, Page 4