Good news for USC’s school district as its 2016-17 audit report comes in showing strong numbers for the Wells-based school’s future.

With the United South Central School Board chairman, Dale Stevermer, absent, board member John Feist ran the regularly-scheduled School Board meeting last Tuesday, Oct. 17.

At the top of the board’s agenda for the evening was a presentation from Greg Larson of Hill, Larson and Path, P.A., to discuss the audit for the 2016-17 school year.

With a “clean opinion” of the school’s audit, Larson reported it was a “decent year for the district.”

And because the district’s numbers were up from the previous year, the school’s general fund also perked up a bit as well. Also, because the school’s activities all have active participants involved in each category of school activity, no cuts were needed to be made for the school’s multiple activities as well.

The district, in its report, adopted three new Government Accounting Standards Board (GASB) statements: Statement number 74, “Financial reporting for postemployment benefit plans other than pension plans,” statement number 75, “Accounting and financial reporting for postemployment benefits other than pensions,” and statement number 68: “Accounting and financial reporting for pensions.”

The report states “the principal objective for all three statements is to improve the usefulness of information about postemployment benefits other than pensions included in the general purpose external financial reports of state and local governmental benefit plans.”

Even with those GASB statements added to the audit for the year, there were no significant difficulties in the audit, no disagreements, and no other findings or issues with the audit. Therefore, the School Board approved the audit findings and moved on to other business.

That business included hearing from Steve Kloos, bringing up the hot topic of baseball lights at Thompson Park.

The previous week, Kloos spoke with the Wells City Council who urged him to look for funds to help pay for a potential $180,000 lighting cost to give Thompson Park’s baseball diamond lights.

“Now if we went with this specific company, that’s what we’d be looking at $180,000 lock and key. But, we’re also trying to brainstorm some other ideas and be creative. The council said they’re on board with the idea if we can find funds, so we’re looking to speak with you to see how you guys feel,” said Kloos.

And the opinion from the board was pretty simple: come back with a budget.

“Once you have an outlined budget for your project, building and grounds can look at the feasibility of this project,” said Superintendent Keith Fleming.

Finally, the board established a date and time for the World’s Best Workforce community meeting.

That meeting is set for 5 p.m. on Nov. 21, in USC’s auditorium.

High School principal Kelly Schlaak informed the board of the upcoming USC?fall musical, “Shrek: The Musical” which will be performed on Nov. 10-12.

Elementary School Principal Tracey Magnuson also informed the board of USC’s upcoming Veteran’s Day program which will take place at 10 a.m. on Veteran’s Day in the gym.