La Center School District Has Board Vacancy - 09/02/10 >The La Center School District No. 101 has a vacancy for Board Director Position #2, due to the resignation of Melissa Miller. Mrs. Miller had been on the Board since 1998 and for many of those years served as the Board Chair. The Board reluctantly accepted Mrs. Miller's resignation at a special meeting held on August 17th, noting that she and her open and honest perspectives will be missed.

In her letter of resignation, Mrs. Miller stated that although she had "mixed feelings" about tendering her resignation, it was time for her to move on with the next chapter in her life and allow some other "innovative, brave soul to bring new perspectives to the position". Mrs. Miller went on to say that she feels very confident decisions that benefit constituents, staff, and students will continue to be made under current Board leadership.

The School Board now begins the task of soliciting interested and qualified candidates to apply for appointment to the vacated position. To qualify, interested persons must be a United States citizen, and a registered voter residing in the school district and appropriate director district (see our website @ www.lacenterschools.org for boundaries of Director District #2). The duration of this appointment will be until November of 2011.

Interested parties are encouraged to call the district office (263-2131)for information on the application process as soon as possible. Applications will be accepted until NOON on Friday, October 1, 2010.

La Center School District Refinances Bonds - 08/23/10 >La Center School District has refinanced its callable 2002 bonds in order to take advantage of lower interest rates. The recent refinancing will save the District's taxpayers a total of over $1.19 million during the next 12 years. Mansell emphasized that these savings flow directly to taxpayers through reduced tax levies and are not available for District expenses. "This is a direct savings to our community members in the form of taxes they expected, but will not have to pay," Mansell said. Since the actual assessed values to be used in the determination of future millage rates is not yet known, the district can only estimate the impact of this refunding, but it could be as much as $.13 per thousand dollars of assessed value for individual taxpayers.

The La Center School Board accomplished these savings by approving the issuance of $11,325,000 in refunding bonds at its meeting held on August 17, 2010. The District has been monitoring bond market conditions and recent low interest rates allowed the District to exceed its savings target. Interest rates averaged 2.71% on the new bonds compared to 5.16% on the old debt.