Reporter Central Kitsap
Keep it classy Expanded classifieds inside Kitsap Week
FRIDAY, OCTOBER 18, 2013 | Vol. 29, No. 3 | www.CENTRALKITSAPREPORTER.com | 50¢
Overtime an issue in CK fire district By Leslie Kelly
lkelly@soundpublishing.com
Central Kitsap Fire & Rescue is already $65,000 over budget in overtime costs and there’s still two months to go in 2013. That was the message Chief Scott Weninger gave board members this week as they began looking at the district’s 2014 budget. The board expects to debate the budget in detail at a work session Oct. 28. A final budget is anticipated to be passed in November or early December. In preparation for the budget discussion, Weninger told the board that to date, the district has spent $774,135 in overtime pay, which is 109 percent of what was budgeted for overtime in the 2013 budget. “We’re $65,000 over budget right now,” he said. “At this rate, we’ll be $200,000 over budget by the end of the year.” Weninger said the district has been over budget in overtime for the past five years. He said much of that is due to the fact that the district’s regular staffing calls for 25 firefighters on staff each shift. The minimum is 19. With only 74 firefighters currently working in the district, and three shifts per day, that creates a situation where sickness and leaves mean the district has to rely on overtime to meet its minimum
Forum allows families to pose questions about students’ move By Seraine Page spage@soundpublishing.com
Seraine Page/Staff photo
Mark Johnson, paramedic for CK Fire and Rescue does his morning routine of fully stocking medical supplies for an ambulance. Overtime in the district is becoming an issue. staffing. Overtime is paid at time and a half in the district. “If we have nine or 10 off on a day, we have to utilize overtime to maintain staffing,” he said. The options that the district has, in order to reduce overtime, is to hire more firefighters, or reduce the minimum daily staffing, he said. Board chairman Dave Fergus agreed something has to been done. “It’s clear the issue is that we have to hire more fire-
fighters to reduce overtime,” said Fergus. “Or we have to reduce the minimum staffing overall. We need to look at both of those two things.” Ronny Smith, vice president of Local IAFF 2819 who attended the meeting said the district needs to do is an overall cost analysis. “To me it should be hard to get overtime, if the staffing model is right,” he said. Smith said the union is committed to staff each engine or ladder truck with at
least three firefighters, rather than the two as is often done. The national standard is four, Weninger said. “We’re committed to the safety of the 73,000 residents in this district and to doing the best job that we can,” Smith said. Fergus said serving the public is always what’s upfront in his mind. “We support great service to the community,” he said. See CK FIRE, A13
Pickin’ the Perfect Pumpkin By Seraine Page
spage@soundpublishing.com
The crunching leaves, hot cocoa and cool, crisp air are all signatures that a blissful time of year has arrived. But the fall season isn’t complete without a trip to the local pumpkin patch. Since opening her gates on Oct. 1, Pheasant Fields Farm owner Nikki Johanson has seen hundreds of visitors flock to her pumpkin patch. Her favorite part of owning a u-pick farm is watching the children come in to go through the corn maze and pick out
their very own pumpkin. “They have a good time. It’s fun,” she said, smiling as she looked around the families milling about on a recent sunny day. The farm has been around for more than 120 years, and it was opened to the public for picking in 1999. Her pumpkins go for 40 cents a pound, something she prides herself on when she knows she is competing with bigtime supermarkets in the pumpkin sales department. “I think our prices are good,” she said, placing a pumpkin on a scale.
Johanson credits the recent sunny weather for an uptick in visitors. And, despite the drought her farm and others in the area suffered through over the summer, she’s happy with her turnout of produce and pumpkins this year. Surrounded by falling autumn leaves and a variety of produce in the farm’s store, it is easy to fall into the mood of Halloween and fall festivities, like the selling of locally-produced jam and the corn maze refined just for kiddos. The Danskin family found that three See PUMPKIN, A13
The Central Kitsap School District’s decision to move ninth graders to high school next year has raised plenty of questions by those impacted. Will the school day be extended due to more crowding and need for a longer passing period? How will tutoring support be impacted? Will there be more lunch sections added? How will electives be impacted? On Tuesday, the district hosted a community forum for concerned parents, staffers and students regarding moving the students up to high schools for the 20142015 school year. About a dozen parents and staff attended the forum, led by Franklyn MacKenzie, CK’s director of secondary education, since interim superintendent Hazel Bauman was out sick. Over the next few months, staffers plan to gather and make mock master schedules and talk in-depth about the impact on the district overall. “This idea of ninth graders moving up is not a new idea,” MacKenzie told the group. A survey completed a few years ago indicated that 76 percent surveyed in the community thought moving ninth graders would be best for the school district. Due to declining enrollment, the time to move ninth graders became a possibility sooner than originally planned. The transition still could be held off for another year, according to David McVicker, director of business and operations. McVicker said the district should have an answer by December or January on if the transition can happen next September. MacKenzie noted that Bauman said she felt with the response she was hearing from the community and the declining enroll-
ment was reason enough to start moving the students to the high schools sooner. On Sept. 25, the board members voted unanimously to move the students from the three middle schools to two high schools, Central Kitsap and Olympic. Klahowya Secondary School will remain seventh through twelfth. Sixth graders will not be moved, but the discussion will happen shortly for what to do with the grade level. With more crowded high schools and less-full middle schools, space is a point of concern for district staff just as much as it is for parents, MacKenzie said. Central Kitsap High School is already known for being crowded, but by moving portables into the parking lot — as it was years ago — the crowding will be alleviated if some are walking outside of the building, he said. That plausible change could also impact an already-challenging parking situation for students and staff. Students may also have to share lockers, but with the transition the district is trying to make to e-books, it may not be a concern shortly, MacKenzie said. The empty space in the middle schools be repurposed. One option MacKenzie suggested was two levels of sixth grade classes — parents could choose to send their student off to junior high or keep them in elementary school for one more year. Other parent concerns included if counselors would move with student to the high school. Some wanted to know if challenging classes would be available for lower grades once ninth graders melded into the high school. MacKenzie said some concerns may not have answers until the district works out all the quirks of the new system.