MOSES LAKE — The Moses Lake School board met for a regular meeting Thursday to pass its annual budget, approve several purchases and receive an update on personnel from the superintendent.  

Budget 

The board approved a balanced $144.6 million budget for the 2025-26 school year. For more information, the Columbia Basin Herald published an article about the budget Friday, which can be found at: https://bit.ly/MLSD2526   

Purchases 

The board must approve purchases over $25,000 and transportation and maintenance had three for consideration at the meeting. All were passed unanimously by the board.  

The department asked to purchase a 2025 Chevrolet Tahoe for about $72,000 and a 2023 Chevrolet Tahoe for nearly $56,000. Both will be used to transport students, according to the Director of Safety and Wellbeing, Scott West. 

The other request was from maintenance to have all of the kitchen hoods cleaned across the district, which will cost nearly $30,000. 

Transportation  

West explained that the transportation department has around $700,000 that needs to be spent by the end of the fiscal year. 

The department asked for permission to purchase around $580,000 worth of equipment. 

This included a Type A Bus without a lift which will cost around $125,000, which will be used to transport students; Busright, which is a routing system, costing nearly $120,000; Special Education Bus which will cost around $133,000; the two Tahoes approved earlier in the meeting; and several other minor purchases under $5,000.  

The board unanimously approved the purchases. The transportation department will still have a remaining account balance of about $178,000.  

New hires 

The district has hired 105 replacements as of Wednesday, according to Superintendent Carol Lewis.  

“All of those were in replacement of people who had resigned, retired, or something like that,” Lewis said.  

These include: five assistant cooks, one assistant director, two assistant preschool teachers, two assistant principals, two bus drivers, one bus driver assistant, one business manager, one counselor, five custodians, one diesel mechanic, three executive directors, three head cooks, one migrant student advocate, 33 paraeducators, two principals, one psychologist, five secretaries, five server helpers, one speech language pathologist and 30 teachers.  

According to Lewis, these replacements have resulted in around $123,000 in savings. In just the district office replacements, there is nearly $53,000 in savings.  

Upcoming meetings  

The next board meeting is Sept. 4 at 6 p.m. at the School Board Room located at 940 E. Yonezawa Blvd.  

MLSD will be meeting with the Moses Lake City Council on Oct. 23 for a joint work study session.  

Correction: The date for the next board meeting was originally misstated but has been corrected above.