Six applicants step up for school board spot

Two familiar faces are among the six candidates set to interview for a spot on Cloquet's school board later this month.

Cloquet public schools leaders on Monday, Dec. 9, agreed to interview Brendon McKeon, Robert Peacock, Nate Sandman, Jason Loons, Shaun Williams and Ted Lammi next week. Each hopes to replace Sarah Buhs, a board member who resigned effective in January after she was elected to the Carlton County board of commissioners in November.

The current board members agreed to meet Friday, Dec. 13 to put together a list of questions to ask each interviewee. They scheduled the interviews for 5 p.m. on Monday, Dec. 16, in the school district's offices on Carlton Avenue.

Sandman is currently the school board's chair and the associate director of the Fond du Lac Band of Lake Superior Chippewa's human services division. He opted to not run for reelection to the school board this fall, but has thrown his hat into the ring to replace Buhs, whose term will expire at the end of 2026.

Sandman said Wednesday he didn't seek another full four-year term on the board because his children are matriculating out of the K-12 school system, but when Buhs' seat opened up, he wanted to present himself as an option to board members.

"I also felt that I could do the two years if the board chooses to move in that direction," Sandman said.

Lammi is a retired airline pilot, a board member of the Carlton County Historical Society, and Carlton school board beat reporter for the Pine Knot. Lammi chaired the school board before Sandman. He failed to win a third term in 2022, losing a five-way race to current members Gary "Hawk" Huard, David Battaglia and Buhs. Lammi said he was disappointed when only two people ran for three open seats on the board in this fall's general elections.

"With my experience on the board and knowledge gained from reporting about board affairs ... I'm available if they think they might need somebody of my experience," Lammi said. If he had wanted to run for a board seat in November, he wouldn't have been able to because he was an election judge, he said.

McKeon is a customer care manager at DBS, a home improvement company. He has previously served as chair and vice chair for the Carlton County Republican Party. In the questionnaire he submitted when he applied to replace Buhs, McKeon said he would be a voice for those outside the school and for common sense.

Peacock is a community campaign coordinator at the Head of the Lakes United Way, a member of the AFSCME Local 3558 board, and a former member of the Fond du Lac Ojibwe school board. An enrolled member of the Red Cliff Band of Lake Superior Chippewa who earned his GED after dropping out of Cloquet High School, Peacock said he believes his unique perspective would be valuable to the greater school board in Cloquet.

Loons is a labor representative for AFSCME Council 5 and an enrolled member of the Fond du Lac Band of Lake Superior Chippewa. He's served on the Minnesota Indian Affairs Council and chairs the Johnson O'Malley and Local Indian Education Committee boards at the Cloquet school district. He said he has a vested interest in serving on the school board because he has two children enrolled in the district.

Williams is the lead clerk at the Cloquet Post Office. He previously served on the Cloquet Educational Foundation board and, as a student at Fond du Lac Tribal & Community College, was appointed to Minnesota State's board of trustees by Gov. Jesse Ventura. In his application for the open board seat, Williams said he values his daughter's education, and serving on the Cloquet board would allow him to contribute to the decisions that would guide youth at the school district and how the district contributes to the broader community.

The Cloquet school board would appoint the replacement board member on Jan. 6, but the person wouldn't take their seat until the first board meeting in February, after a 30-day waiting period to allow the public to petition against the appointment.

Low levy

In related news, the school board on Monday held its state-mandated Truth in Taxation presentation and public hearing, at which administrators outlined the district's finances in general and its upcoming property tax levy in particular.

No one in the audience spoke at the hearing, and the board's subsequent vote to enact the levy was unanimous.

Board members had agreed on Sept. 23 to set the total levy amount at whatever maximum the state government would allow, but that figure wasn't concrete until early October. It is $7,663,033.76 - approximately 1.39 percent lower than the levy board members set last year.

The maximum levy is lower this year than last, in part because the district's enrollment has dipped, according to business manager Candace Nelis. The state government sends "equalization" aid to districts with relatively low enrollment, but that, in turn, means it allows those districts to enact smaller levies.

"If we have less students, we're going to get more aid and less levy," Nelis explained.

Cloquet Public Schools enrolled 2,598 students in the 2023-2024 school year, according to the Minnesota Department of Education - that's about 1.6 percent fewer students than the 2,641 the district enrolled in the 2022-2023 school year.

The school district expects about $50.3 million in total revenue this school year. The local property tax levy board members enacted last year accounts for about 15 percent of that, according to district staff.

The levy agreed upon Monday is for taxes payable in 2025 and its proceeds will pay for the school district's 2025-2026 budget.

Property tax levies by Cloquet's city government and by Carlton County payable in 2025 are both set to increase. The Cloquet City Council approved an 11.23-percent levy increase last week. The county proposal was 3 percent higher.

As Monday's hearing wrapped up, superintendent Michael Cary emphasized that the school district's levy was going down, rather than up. He jokingly noted that running the district for a year costs about the same as employing a high-profile NFL quarterback.

"I'm a sports fan, and I hear it all the time: 'Oh, they're totally worth it,'" Cary said wryly as some other administrators and board members chuckled. "Well, we educate 2,500 kids for the same price. I think they're totally worth it."

Nelis also shared an update on the school district's plan to refinance bonds it issued to replace Cloquet Middle School. In 2015, voters allowed the district to borrow $45.45 million to pay for the new school building, which was foremost among a slate of projects that also included moving early childhood programming and bolstering each school's safety and security measures.

If board members approve the refinancing plan at their meeting on Jan. 6, the district would borrow $35.52 million and use that money to repay the remainder of the 2015 bonds. The newer bonds would have a lower interest rate, which, Nelis said, means the district would save about $2 million worth of interest payments in total. The new bonds would expire in February 2036.