O-M’s dissolvement committee holds first meeting

ORIENT — Members of the Orient-Macksburg school district dissolvement committee met for the first time Monday and discussed two objectives for their purpose; create a solution that is best for the existing students and the district property taxpayers who will become part of another school district.

With declining enrollment continuing and difficulty to meet budget needs, earlier this month the Orient-Macksburg school board approved to begin the dissolvement of the district effective after the 2024-2025 school year.

The first step was to appoint a committee to create a plan to end the district to be approved by Orient-Macksburg voters on a March 2025 ballot. Committee members must live within the district and have no more than three school board members.

“If a September vote fails, in March we can try again,” said Ryan Frederick, who was approved as president by the committee. “But if we vote only in March and it fails, we don’t know what happens.” Should the vote fail the state will take over the process to dissolve the district according to Orient-Macksburg school officials.

Board-approved committee members are Jana Scott and Alex Maeder plus Frederick, Gary Metzger, Kevin Blair, Matt Thompson and Matt Mensing. Scott and Maeder are school board members. Mensing replaced Mike Thompson who was initially named to the committee. Blair was appointed vice president of the committee.

Orient-Macksburg Superintendent Jeff Kruse, who only guided the meeting as he has no voting privileges, said considering the amount of work needed to be done to create the plan, it would be an incredible effort to have it all ready for a Sept. 10 vote. Information for a September vote must be complete by Aug. 10. The committee unanimously approved a March 4, 2025, vote date. A simple majority determines the outcome.

Kruse explained one goal is to establish the new district boundaries.

“That is what is to be voted on,” he said.

Committee members have the option to meet with Orient-Macksburg property owners who are adjacent to the neighboring school districts; Creston, East Union, Nodaway Valley and Winterset. It’s expected those Orient-Macksburg property owners will be absorbed by a neighboring district, if the neighboring districts agree to take a proposed amount of Orient-Macksburg territory. There will be a public hearing before the election day. Neighboring school districts can object to proposals.

Frederick said school district tax rates will be key in those discussions. For example, Orient-Macksburg is at 11%. Winterset is at 15.9% and has debt service until 2038. Orient-Macksburg has property tax revenue from wind turbines in its district. Frederick offered to further research property tax related items among all the districts.

The neighboring districts that acquire amounts of the Orient-Macksburg territory will receive the equivalent percentage of financial assets from Orient-Macksburg. For example, if Creston takes 50% of the territory, it will receive 50% of the sales of Orient-Macksburg items.

“The borders have to align,” Kruse said about the work on the new boundaries. Boundaries must be contiguous.

The committee has information about Orient-Macksburg students who open enroll to other districts and students who open enroll to Orient-Macksburg. About 80 students who live in the Orient-Macksburg district attend school elsewhere.

Frederick said he does not want what he called a “spaghetti plate” of boundaries that are more crooked than straight.

“In 20 years, it still has to make sense,” Blair said about the future.

Committee members were provided information about the number of students who open-enroll out of the Orient-Macksburg district and those who open-enroll in.

“If we do this only for tax purposes, we are not doing a service to the kids,” said Blair.

The committee will meet at 5:30 p.m., July 1 at the library in the school. Scott said committees to determine the school building’s future and school memorabilia will be created later.