— Matt Cook

BERNE — The town of Westerlo has repeated its request to buy the Westerlo Elementary School building.

At the Berne-Knox-Westerlo School Board meeting Monday, Westerlo councilmen Edward Rash and R. Gregory Zeh Jr., speaking on behalf of the town, asked the board to grant Westerlo the first option to buy the building, which the district voted, in February, to close to students for the next school year.
"Even the building itself has become a part of the landscape of the town," Rash said. "It’s a very important part of the village as well as the township."

Rash and Zeh said it would be better to sell it to the town, which would use it for a town hall, than to someone else, who might alter the historic building.

Westerlo had sent a letter to the district about buying the school before it was closed and accompanied Monday’s presentation with another letter.

Karen Storm, school board president, told the councilmen that the school board is not interested in selling the building. This has been the district’s stance since the school was closed.
"I don’t believe this particular school board could vote that far in the future and bind a future school board to anything," Storm said.

Storm said the board would forward the town’s letter to the school district’s attorney to find out what the district can legally do.
"We know there’s no hurry; we just wanted to make sure," Rash said.

At a town board meeting Tuesday, Rash and Zeh reported on their presentation.
"I don’t think they understood what we were asking," Rash told the town board.

Town attorney Aline Galgay asked if any Westerlo residents were at the school board meeting to support the sale of the building to the town.
"There was no opinion, aye or nay," Rash said.

The budget

In other business at its June 6 meeting, the Berne-Knox-Westerlo School Board held a public hearing on changes to the proposed budget, set for a June 14 vote. The proposal has been cut $50,000 from the original $17.6 million budget proposal that was defeated in May by 17 votes.

With the additional cuts, the average tax-rate increase will be around 4 percent, said business administrator Gregory Diefenbach. Four percent is a goal the budget committee set when it started planning, Diefenbach said.

Over the past few months, there has been some discussion about whether the budget committee was referring to the tax-rate increase, the budget increase (5.92 percent with the proposal), or the tax-levy increase (4.99 percent).

Also on the budget, Superintendent Steven Schrade addressed the concerns of some district residents who said the increase in the amount budgeted for the district’s instructional programs, $3,000, was less than the increase in the amount budgeted for extracurricular activities and sports, $13,000.

The $13,000 sports increase would not be enough to hire any additional teaching staff, Schrade said. Besides, he said, with a participation rate of 40 to 50 percent, sports are an important part of a BKW education.
"I believe it’s a very good investment," Schrade said. "A successful high school is built on very high academic achievement, a good arts and music program, and a very fine sports program."