The Mount Vernon School Board met Monday, August 12. The meeting mainly looked at where they stood with the budget as the school year begins and introduced a few long-term ideas to decrease costs.

Superintendent Matt Leeman opened the meeting by reviewing the AEA budget. The school does not pay AEA until the end of the school year, but they have predicted it will cost about $128,000. Included in the estimation is 36 days’ worth of consultant meetings for teachers. The hope is that the school can time the meetings, so they can reduce the number of meetings with consultants. Each day’s worth of meetings costs $900, so saving a couple of days could allow them to use that money elsewhere.

The school purchased a new Gator for $35,848. The old Gator was becoming too expensive to continue to fix. The old Gator would not draw much value in a trade-in, so the board members wanted to look in to giving the vehicle to the industrial class at the high school.

A new HVAC system will be needed to be bought for all three buildings before the end of the calendar year. The cost for the new system would be $252,000 excluding tax and the cost to patch the walls and ceilings after installment. Leeman estimated that the real cost would be closer to $280,000. The current system in the schools has become outdated and is no longer supported by Basepoint Building Automations, the company that the HVAC system was bought from. Board president Rick Elliot said that purchasing an HVAC system is a project that cannot be avoided. The board will vote to approve the project at one of the upcoming meetings.

The board also discussed a future change to solar energy. Leeman said moving to solar would save millions of dollars in energy expenses over the next 30 years. Those savings would be able to be put into other projects in the schools. Currently, the school district is paying a premium price because of the amount of energy they use. This discussion in the meeting was mainly pro-solar, but they took no action on advancing a solar energy project. The City of Lisbon and City of Mount Vernon have installed solar energy projects at their buildings in the past, with Mount Vernon installing solar panels at Lester Buresh Family Community Wellness Center and the Mount Vernon-Lisbon Police Department last summer.

Elliot said that the solar energy issue was one that should continue to be discussed and that the schools need to continue to look at ways to save energy usage. One idea that was brought up was to begin to change the lights from fluorescent to LED. This is because LED lights are more efficient energy and cost-wise.