ANNA — The Anna Schools began 2016 by agreeing to contracts and pay rates for all employees for a three year period of time. With a strong financial forecast and considerable general fund carryover balance, the schools are extremely fiscally stable for the foreseeable future.

Superintendent Andy Bixler has submitted the following report:

The school system is going through a transition in treasurers. After 36 years, Denny Raberding is stepping down from the position. While he will remain working for the schools focusing primarily on our building renovation project, the school board employed district resident, Cathy Doseck to take over the treasurer’s role. Cathy has served as a school treasurer in both a traditional school as well as educational service center, most recently holding the same post in New Knoxville.

The Anna School Board continues to prepare for the planned $20,000,000 facilities renovation project in partnership with the Ohio Facilities Construction Commission. The state will supply $8,700,000 with local taxpayers paying the rest. Input from the community clearly showed the strong desire to distribute the local share of the costs as broadly as possible. With that in mind, the board decided to place a levy on the March 15 ballot that asked for an increase of 1/4 percent of income tax and about 2.7 mills of property tax for a term of up to 18 years and the voters approved this initiative. The money will be spent in all of our educational facilities and extend their functional use by 30 to 40 years. We were able to borrow money at historically low rates and maintain the values and priorities that have become historically important to our community. The Anna Schools will be one of the last area schools to have an OSFC project and the first to have it paid off.

Together with the state as a partner the schools have selected BSHM as the architects for the project. This firm is located in Columbus and has extensive background in renovations. The planning team has also selected Robertson as the construction manager for the project. The central Ohio company is dedicated to utilizing the local workforce as subcontractors in a building renovation. With these two groups on board, the real planning will begin.

In August, the new State Report Card was released. The Anna schools earned a “B” in the area of achievement. With all the changes to state testing, the Anna students showed that they were prepared for the new challenges. This is a credit to our high performing students, dedicated staff and supportive parents.