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Wednesday, January 27, 2021
CCUSD teachers must use sick time to quarantine BY SARAH DONAHUE Foothills Focus Staff Writer
Foothills Food Bank sees a record number of clients
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OVID-19 is not over — but a federal act that once provided teachers with extra paid sick leave has now come to an end. Cave Creek Unified School District (CCUSD) announced it is discontinuing additional sick leave benefits for employees after the Families First Coronavirus
Response Act (FFCRA) expired on Dec. 31. The federal government enacted this mandate last spring to provide teachers up to 80 hours of additional paid sick leave or expanded family and medical leave for reasons related to COVID-19. Its effective date was April 1. The discontinuation of this benefit means CCUSD’s teachers now must use their own sick hours if they choose to quarantine after being exposed to
COVID-19. The district explained its reasoning for ending this benefit in an email sent to CCUSD employees. “This unfunded mandate, along with declining student enrollment, placed a financial strain on the district’s already precarious financial position,” it stated. The district spent $137,123 on “FF-
“I am confident that I am well suited to help DFLT, the town of Cave Creek and Maricopa County Parks and Rec in their appraisal needs, especially considering I have prepared numerous appraisals near the subject tracts in the past several years,” said Gregory Richards of Richards & Associates in the submitted contract bid. The private, separately owned properties that will be appraised are about 94 acres and include the Harmony Hollow Ranch, which has been on the market for over a year for $1.5 million. “With public sentiment urging the town to look at perhaps pursuing the purchase of the Cross Property aka Harmony Hollow, we started talks with Desert Foothills Land Trust and Marico-
pa County at partnering and looking at lands, and it starts with appraisal services,” said Cave Creek Planning Director Luke Kautzman at the Jan. 19 meeting. To explore Spur Cross Ranch Conservation Area’s expansion, an intergovernmental agreement had to be approved between the Maricopa County Board of Supervisors and the Cave Creek Town Council. The county manages the land, which is owned by the town. Passed in the summer 2020, the IGA retains and splits the costs of an appraiser to evaluate if expanding the conservation area was viable. Acquiring Harmony Hollow for conservation is not a new effort. During the last
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Cave Creek council OKs Spur Cross appraisal
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BY TARA ALATORRE Foothills Focus Contributing Writer
The Cave Creek Town Council unanimously approved a $19,000 appraisal services contract at its Jan. 19 meeting for an assessment of five parcels that are all contiguous to the Spur Cross Ranch Conservation Area. It’s the next step in potentially expanding the park. The contract was awarded to Anthem-based Richards & Associates, a firm specializing in appraising properties for conservation and natural resources across nine Western states. It has resulted in hundreds of thousands of acres of land preservation, according to its application.
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