Minutes from November 6th, 2017

The Casper Rotary Club
 
This week's meeting will be held:
Monday, November 13th, 2017
at the Ramkota Hotel and Conference Center
800 N. Poplar
Casper, WY  82601
 
 
Greeters:
Becky Byron
Greg Dixson
 
Inspiration:
Carley Applegate
 
Program: Bruce Lamberson - Sports on Casper Mountain
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Rotary Club of Casper WY
Meeting Summary
11/06/2017
 
President Richard Schwahn called the meeting to order promptly at 12:29, with the ring of the bell and welcomed everyone to today’s meeting at the Ramkota Inn.
 
Inspiration, Pledge, 4-Way Test:
Hal Hutchinson         
 
Greeters:
Dave Simonson and Mandy George were our greeters today and Dave introduced the members who brought guests:
  • Denise Prugh introduced Fred DeVore (Peterbilt of WY);
  • Martha Rakestraw introduced the parents of our SOM, Steve and Becky Harshman, along with Larry Meeboer from NCHS;
  • Frida our exchange student was with us today also;
Song:
Gary Pehrson had us all stand and lead us in singing “Cowboy Joe” in honor of UW Football.
 
We had a new member inducted today, Steve Carpenter sponsored by Jimmy Goolsby, welcome to Rotary.
 
Rotary Tidbit:
President Richard let us know that November is Rotary Foundation month and on the table is an information sheet about the Foundation.
 
Family of Rotary:
  • Deb Theriault let us know that she and Gene visited Don Harris and said that he is not doing well so please remember him in your thoughts and prayers.
Rotarians of the Week:
  • Tom Broumley nominated Chaz Farnham for donating a moving van and a couple of helpers to move the club cabinets and things over from the Parkway Plaza to the Ramkota. He also nominated Percy Anderson for being the Commanding Officer over about 500 ex-ROTC Cadets at the Texas A&M Football Game last week.
  • All of the Veterans in the club were nominated for their service in honor of Veteran’s Day.
  • Brad Bodoh nominated Susie McMurry for all of her work with the community and the BSA, the BSA will be honoring her this Friday as distinguished citizen and good scout for 2017. He also nominated Mike Ward for helping out at the Scout office while they have been shorthanded for the past three weeks.
  • President Schwahn nominated our club set up team for all of their hard work in getting us moved over to our new venue and all they do every week to get us ready for our meetings.
  • Brian Deurloo nominated Dr. Schwahn and his team for taking great care of his dog and her cancer treatment. Brian also nominated Bill Schilling for all of his hard work with Leadership Wyoming.
  • Liz Becher nominated Lisa Scroggins and John Jorgensen for their service on the community panels to hire a new CPD Chief.
  • President Schwahn nominated Gene Theriault and Rod Aaker for changing our Rotary signage around town and getting them updated with the new meeting place and freshening them up.
Student of The Month:
Martha Rakestraw introduced our student from NCHS today, Jesse Harshman. What a great young man with a great future.
 
Announcements:
  • Liz Becher reminded us that November is Rotary Foundation month and announced the Foundation Pheasant dinner will be held at Three Crowns on Friday November 17th starting at 5:30 p.m. with appetizers and a cash bar followed by a buffet dinner. Cost is $45 per person. This will be a collaboration of all of the Rotary Clubs in town so please RSVP by next Tuesday. An email and online signup will go out this week.
  • President Schwahn reminded us that in the budget is money for a matching donation to the foundation if anyone wants to donate to the foundation, first come first served for the donation match. He also gave us an update on the golf tournament it earned over $10,600 for our international project.
  • Steve Loftin announced that next week the Food Bank of the Rockies needs some help next week after the meeting, he asked for six volunteers and got more than that. Someone then volunteered Casey Allison to run it while Steve is gone next week. He also updated us on the Rotary Park projects, the outhouse is supposed to show up this week, and we will be putting up another picnic pavilion and they are working on the permit, he thanked Randy Hein for helping with that process.
  • President Schwahn reminded us again that statements went out and if you did not receive yours to please let them know.
Program (Steve Hopkins, NCSD #1):
PE Dick Jay introduced our speaker, Steve Hopkins, NCSD#1 Superintendent. Steve gave us an update on the school district and the construction projects and finances. Steve started by telling us that we should be optimistic about the future as we have many students like our SOM Jesse in our student body in Casper that work hard and are great young adults with bright futures ahead of them. We do occasionally have those that make mistakes and do stupid things but they are not as abundant as the good ones, they are few and far between. He said that he appreciates Rotarians and all they do for the community. He said that he knows that the district exists to educate our youth not to build schools. He reminded us that nine years ago the board put into place a construction plan with four straight forward goals that are easy to understand and report on. The reports are on the district website so that anyone can look at them. The construction plan is a 15 year $500 million plan with 17 major projects that have been funded and we are coming close to the end of that plan. The Coal industry and the State legislature get major credit for this project and its funding, Mr. Wold even gave Steve a chunk of coal to remind him where the money came from for these projects.  The money was set aside for only what is approved in the construction project so it can’t be touched for anything else. The two largest projects are left to finish, that of NCHS and KWHS construction. They are both close to being completed. NCHS is in the last two phases of construction, it was done in phases so that the students could continue to attend classes while the construction was taking place. The last two phases entail the Northwest section and will be completed soon. The ribbon will probably be cut in December or January. KWHS is also nearing completion, most of the interior is done but there is a lot left to do on the outside such as landscaping and parking lots. There is still about 200 parking spaces to get completed so that will alleviate the street parking for the neighbors. It is all slated to be completed June of 2018.
 
He then spoke about the operational funding which comes from the Legislature, the largest determining factor for funding is the number of students attending the schools in the district and with the downturn in the economy our enrollment has dropped and the State is facing extensive deficits in many areas. He let us know that he is not discouraged nor is he ignoring the issue. He has faith in the legislature that they will do what needs done and it will get worked out. The district and the board are making the changes that need done, they started the preparations as soon as they saw that the downturn was coming. Since 85% of the budget is for personnel then it stands to reason that the biggest cuts will have to be in people. So they made a plan to scrutinize each position that was vacated to determine if they could function without replacing that position thus avoiding layoffs in the future. For the past two and a half years they have been able to eliminate about a hundred positions which is a little over 5%. The current plan calls for a $12 million reduction over a three year period of time. They calculated that by taking their portion of the cuts from the legislature along with the money that will be lost through the drop in enrollment over the three year period and they will adjust it as they go each year in order to balance the budget. The reductions have been in people leaving, in adjusting class size, non-personnel budgets have been adjusted and some programs as well as transportation adjustments and this is where cuts will continue to be adjusted.
 
The floor was then opened for questions, the four goals were asked for and he responded with them starting with number 4, Effective and efficient, health and Safety. 3 Reading, they want all third graders to be at grade level in their reading abilities by third grade; 2 The District wants to have all schools at meeting or exceeding expectations for the WY goals; 1 Higher Graduation rate and with the students being prepared for what is next, currently we are at 80% and they want to reach 85%. He then answered a question about the dual language immersion program and said that the program is still desired, there is a waiting list and they are still planning on developing that for when those students hit middle school in the next year and a half so they can continue that program. Someone asked about average class size, in Primary grades it is 18 intermediate is 26 then in middle school and high school they are not consistent because of the change of types of classes. A question was asked about Pathways and what is happening with that program, he stated that in order to get the enrollment up they are re-engineering that program, the HS principles are meeting to figure out how to improve that program and increase enrollment for it to be successful. A question was asked about the bussing as sometimes you will see busses around town that look empty. Steve stated that they are always looking at transportation costs and even though we have open enrollment with lots of busses running the costs are still in align with those areas, Cheyenne and Gillette, which do not have open enrollment. They follow all of the rules that are mandated by the state that are designed to keep the students safe. He also let us know that with the newer buildings the maintenance department has downsized since the newer buildings require less maintenance. He was asked about the school closers for next year and what that will entail. He said that the following schools will be closed, Willard, University Park, Mountain View, and Frontier Middle School. The three elementary school buildings will be mothballed so that when enrollment increases we will have the facilities to handle the students. He was asked about Star Lane and its future and he said that that program will also be absorbed into the Pathways program in some way so that they can still try to help those students in a way that will fit with the budget.
 
President Richard Schwahn concluded the meeting at 1:31; letting us know that next week we are back at the Ramkota. The owner of Mountain Sports will be our speaker next week.