The Kodiak Island Borough school board passed a memorandum of agreement to provide districtwide occupational therapy services Monday night.

The services are for the district’s autism and preschool programs. The Kodiak Island Borough School District (KIBSD) was unsuccessful filling two current vacancies for physical and occupational therapists. To fill the gap in services Emerald Isle Therapy will be contracted.

The amount for services is not to exceed $15,400 for the period of Oct. 1 to December 2009. These positions are built into the school budget.

Revenues and expenditures also were discussed.

“Our current revenues as of August are $5,176,000,” KIBSD Director of Finance Luke Fulp said. “Our expenditures to date at that point in time were $1,387,000.”

He explained there are still some items that need to be figured in that will change totals.

“The reason for that variance is because a major portion of our expenditures are teacher contracts,” Fulp said. “Those don’t kick in until Sept. 8.”

School board members then voted for school board president, vice president, clerk of school board and treasurer. The votes were cast by secret ballot. Norm Wooten was re-elected president, Melissa Borton was re-elected vice president, Peggy Rauwolf was re-elected clerk of the school board and Petal Ruch was re-elected as the school board treasurer.

Wooten and Ruch also took the oath of office as they were re-elected for three-year terms on the school board in the October general election.

Five villages also had newly elected and re-elected individuals who were certified. Altogether Danger Bay, Port Lions, Old Harbor, Karluk and Ouzinkie had a total of 16 people certified.

The high school bond restoration and expansion project was also updated.

Borough Director of Operations Scott Williams said there are four things to be addressed.

“First is an application to DEED (Alaska Department of Education and Early Development) to seek their approval for the reimbursement for the debt,” Williams said. “The educational specifications need to be submitted to DEED for their final approval, and we need to refine those a little bit before we push them on. We need to submit a request for proposal for architects and we’re also coordinating how we’re going to project manage this.”

The borough, with close cooperation and coordination with Williams, is developing the RFP. The proposal will have to go through the architect review board as well. Management for the project will either be through in-house sources or an external independent party.

Williams also said he and the borough are looking into creative ways to get money for the project.

“We looked at energy and how we might be able to drive some grant monies,” he said. “We believe we’re going to be applying for a grant at this point through the Alaska Energy Authority for seed money for research into energy options for the project.”

Once grant money is received different energy options, such as wind turbines or photovoltaic panels, will be researched. If the research phase provides a worthwhile energy option that reduces the cost of the project or could reduce the cost of operational expenses in the long-term, then they will proceed with a follow-up grant.

Mirror writer Louis Garcia can be reached via e-mail at lgarcia@kodiakdailymirror.com.