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Thursday, December 19, 2013
SERVING DIXON AND THE SURROUNDING AREA SINCE 1851
DIXON SCHOOL BOARD
Lincoln Elementary will close Lengthy debate concludes with 4-2 vote night at the high school. With the meeting pushing past the 3-hour mark, the decision was still very much in doubt. But, ultimately, John Jacobs and Terry Shroyer cast the two votes against the closure.
BY MATT MENCARINI mmencarini@saukvalley.com 800-798-4085, ext. 529
DIXON – Lincoln Elementary School will close, by virtue of a 4-2 vote at the Dixon School Board meeting Wednesday
Board member Kevin Sward was absent from the meeting. Board member Tom LeMoine wasn’t confident a ballot referendum would pass, and favored closing the school, but said it was a tough decision.
The vote came nearly 2 months after Superintendent Michael Juneger first presented it to the board as a way of addressing the school district’s $1.5 million deficit in the education fund for the 2013-14 school year, which leaves a fund balance of $1.4 million.
How members voted Yes
Jim Schielein, Tom LeMoine, Pam Tourtillott, Josh Arduini
No
John Jacobs, Terry Shroyer * – Kevin Sward was absent from the meeting.
LINCOLN CONTINUED ON A2
TAMPICO PROGRAM GIVES BLANKETS, RELIEF TO WASHINGTON
DIXON SCHOOLS
Leaders review final offers with board Proposals from union, district went public Wednesday BY MATT MENCARINI mmencarini@saukvalley.com 800-798-4085, ext. 529
Photos by Alex T. Paschal/apaschal@saukvalley.com
ABOVE: Tampico Elementary School fifth-grader Brody Naftzger pulls a box of blankets into the back of a school bus Wednesday morning, as students and staff prepare to deliver them to students in need in Washington. The Tampico school raised $1,400 to buy the materials and make blankets for families affected by the EF4 tornado that devastated the central Illinois city Nov. 17. RIGHT: Several staff members assisted the students in delivering 200 blankets to Central Elementary School in Washington. See more pictures and read more about how the fifth-grade student council project took flight on A3.
OPEN GOVERNMENT | SHERIFF’S DEPARTMENTS
Agency routes people to higher fees Cheaper way available to get records than following letter’s lead to website BY DAVID GIULIANI dgiuliani@saukvalley.com 800-798-4085, ext. 525
MORRISON – If you get into a traffic accident in the jurisdiction of the Whiteside County Sheriff’s Department – whether you are at fault or not – you will get a letter from the agency. The mailer doesn’t contain
$1.00
a copy of the accident report. Rather, it gives you instructions on how to access those records from a website. Once on the site, you’ll find out it costs $13 to get the report. The letter states, “To obtain the full accident report, you must register for an account at the website listed on the [accompanying] card.”
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What the letter doesn’t say is that people have the right to obtain those reports for a much lower cost. If someone goes into the Sheriff’s Department in Morrison to obtain the report, that person is charged a flat fee of $5, no matter how many pages. Under the Freedom of Information Act, requests for
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DEAR ABBY ....... A10 LOTTERY ............. A2 OBITUARIES ........ A4
public records can be emailed. A state law allows law enforcement agencies to charge up to $5 for reports, and $20 if they involve accident reconstruction officers. So why is the Sheriff’s Department routing people to a website with a higher charge?
DIXON – Several hours before the Dixon School Board met in the auditorium at Dixon High School, the final offers from the district and the Dixon Educational Support Personnel Association went public after nearly 18 months of private negotiations. Those offers, and the long negotiation, were addressed during the meeting. DESPA President Mindy Donoho addressed the crowd and the school board during the public comment portion of the meeting. Moments later, Superintendent Michael Juenger reviewed points Michael of the school disJuenger trict’s final offer and the tentative agreement that had been reached, but wasn’t ratified by DESPA members, in August. The sticking point in the Mindy n e g o t i a t ion, Donoho which reached an impasse Dec. 4, is the way the district will calculate the hours worked to be eligible for health insurance. The district’s proposal is to define the school year, which hadn’t been defined in the previous contract that expired in June 2012, as the first institute day to the last institute day, Juenger said. The issue DESPA takes with that calculation, Donoho told Sauk Valley Media in an interview this month, is the fact that breaks during the year, during which the teacher aides don’t work, are not removed when the total hours are divided by the weeks. REVIEW CONTINUED ON A2
FEES CONTINUED ON A4
OPINION .............. A6 PLAN!T ................. A7 SPORTS ...............B1
Today’s weather High 36. Low 25. More on A3.
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