Keota, WACO, and Highland School Districts are all in sharing agreements with the Washington School District this year resulting in hundreds of thousands of dollars in savings.

At Wednesday’s Washington School Board meeting, Superintendent Jeff Dicks said, “Our incentives in shared packages is over $300,000. So, I know from time to time I get questioned about if we should really be sharing a superintendent, a business manager, a maintenance person, I believe that’s a pretty strong reason to do that.” He adds operational sharing incentives are set to expire in budget year 2019 per Iowa Code, “In times like this, I think we have to be more proactive than ever. This is another reason though that lobbying is important because operational sharing incentives are set to expire. If that would happen, that would be a $300,000 potential financial challenge for us.”

Earlier this year the Washington School Board approved renewing sharing agreements with WACO for superintendent, maintenance director, and transportation director. A maintenance director is also shared with Highland. The Demons will also share a business manager and just approved maintenance sharing with Keota at Wednesday’s meeting.