‘Dazzle’ on its way
100 years on the farm
Annual holiday celebration is Dec. 9
Boegeman family celebrates
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PRIOR LAKE
SATURDAY, DECEMBER 3, 2011
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AMERICAN JOIN THE CHAT SHOULD THE COUNCIL GIVE BACK THE CITY’S BUDGET SURPLUS ALL IN ONE YEAR, OR SPREAD OUT OVER A FEW YEARS? WEIGH IN AT
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Time for tax talk Public truth-intaxation hearing is Monday Taxpayers will have a chance on Monday, Dec. 5 to express their views on the city’s proposed 2012 budget. A public truth-in-taxation hearing is scheduled during the Prior Lake City Council’s meeting, which begins at 7 p.m. at City Hall, 4646 Dakota St. In September, the council registered a split vote on a preliminary tax levy for 2012, leaving it up to the Scott County auditor to use 2011’s fi nal proposed tax levy of $10.1 million as the preliminary 2012 city levy. Among the 4.5-percent proposed spending increase in the $25.7 million budget for 2012 is a plan to hire more employees – an accountant in the finance department, additional hours for receptionists, and a police supervisor. Other proposed spending increases stem from the need to maintain the big-ticket buildings the city has constructed within the last 10 years, including City Hall, the police station, a second fire station and a water-treatment facility. Council members agree those increases are necessary investments in the city’s facilities. The city anticipates having a $550,000 surplus from the current year, which will bump up the general-fund reserve to more than $7.6 million – about $2 million more than planned. That would leave the city with a 60-percent reserve level, about 15 percent more than needed. Council members are inching closer to using reserve funds to lower proper ty taxes, though Mayor Mike Myser disagrees with the rest of the council about how to offer that property-tax relief. Myser prefers to give taxpayers a larger-sum reduction all in one year, while the remaining council members support reducing the levy over several years. The council will approve a fi nal 2012 budget and tax levy on Dec. 19.
PHOTO BY MERYN FLUKER
Prior Lake High School junior Sam Harrison (right) tugs along some enthusiastic fourth-graders during the game Soul Train, in which students learn each others’ names and do a dance before forming a long human line and racing around the room. At Wednesday’s Youth Frontiers kindness retreat, Jeffers Pond Elementary School fourth-graders sang, danced and played games but also identified things about their school – and themselves – that they’d like to change and how they plan to do it.
Significant changes ahead for secondary schedules Spanish will be mandatory for eligible sixth-graders BY MERYN FLUKER mfluker@swpub.com
PHOTO BY SHANNON FIECKE
Carver County 911 telecommunicator Linda Mullenbach awaits a call. If Scott and Carver counties merge their dispatch centers, one would have to close.
Scott, Carver consider 911 dispatch merger Savings could add up to a half million dollars per year BY SHANNON FIECKE sfiecke@swpub.com
Emergency dispatchers in Scott County could be taking 911 calls from residents in Carver County – or vice versa – in the future under a merger being considered by the neighboring counties.
Supervisors from the two sheriff’s offices met with commissioners from each county Tuesday in Chaska to share steps they are taking to learn what it would take – and how much they could save – by melding the two counties’ 911 dispatch services. It’s too early for definitive costsaving fi gures, but Carver County Commissioner Randy Maluchnik said he’s hopeful the counties could save up to a half million dollars per year if they consolidate.
Dispatch to page 3 ®
Next year’s sixth-graders will be saying “hola” to Spanish class in the Prior Lake-Savage Area School District. Mandatory Spanish instruction is just one of the changes on the way for the 2012-13 school year. S c ho ol B o a r d members approved sweeping solutions to secondary-level cou rse of ferings designed to alleviate speed bumps encountered this ye a r a s d i st r ic t David middle and high Lund schools shifted to a six-period schedule and a fourquarter, two-semester calendar. Among the scheduling headaches for administrators and students were imbalanced class sizes and elective conflicts – with some students unable to secure placement in their fi rst-, second- or even thirdchoice elective classes. “We ran into some huge problems … No matter how we ran the numbers, it was physically impossible,” said Prior Lake High School Princi-
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What’s new The Prior Lake-Savage Area School Board approved changes to secondary course offerings designed to alleviate scheduling conflicts and inconsistent class sizes. Here’s how things will look different for secondary students beginning in 2012-13: Spanish will be mandatory for all eligible sixth-grade students. Students whose test scores are below proficiency will continue to enroll in reading/math extension courses. Spanish will replace the sixth-grade exploratory worldlanguage class, which will no longer be offered. Equally balanced every-otherday course offerings, which may mean staff additions. All Prior Lake High School courses will be divided into quarters, as opposed to the current mix of semester- and quarter-length classes.
pal David Lund. “We had students list seven or eight electives, and we still couldn’t get any of them.” Class sizes varied wildly between different sections of the same courses, particularly at the high school, where some classes had 24 students to one teacher and others had as many as 43 students per instructor – which created a space crunch in classrooms.
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VOL. 52 ISSUE 10 © SOUTHWEST NEWSPAPERS
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BY LORI CARLSON editor@plamerican.com