By CHARLEY PREUSSER

SENECA - The Seneca School Board approved the district’s final 2019-2020 budget at their meeting Monday night.

With some very minor changes, the balanced budget is essentially the same budget as initially proposed and it is essentially the same budget that was approved at the recent annual meeting. The budget as approved projects $4,380,248 in total revenue and $4,380,248 in total expenses.

There was no discussion of the budget as proposed. On a roll call vote, the board unanimously approved the motion. Seneca School Board members Charles Clark and Shawn Lenzendorf did not attend the Monday night meeting because of other commitments.

On unanimous votes, the board also approved a Fund 10 tax levy of $1,621, 323 and a total tax levy of $1,662,011. The tax levy will result in a mil rate of 9.77. That means school taxes on a property with an equalized value of $100,000 in the Seneca School Districtt would be $977.

During the treasurer’s report, Larry Kelley went over the direct deposits and the wire transfers. He noted the wire transfers were $100,000 more than the pervious month and he was not entirely sure of what caused that increase. Kelley indicated that he asked Seneca District Administrator David Boland to find the source of the increase in the wire transfer amount.

During his report, Boland told the board that the district phone system had been failing after every power outage and needed to be rebooted. In discussion with the phone service provider, Century Link, the district learned there is not a current service contract with the phone company. The district signed up for a new service contract and learned the failing server would need to be replaced by year’s end anyway because it was outdated.

 Boland noted the phones were all updated about five or six years ago following damage caused by a lightning strike. The server is 13 years old.

In other business, the Seneca School Board:

• approved a shared service (6630) contract with the Monroe School District allowing a Seneca speech teacher to work two days a week online with students from that district

• learned that the district’s coaches and assistant coaches had completed CPR training

• learned that a student influenza clinic had been completed and the staff clinic would be completed soon.