AUSD welcomes Joey Arnold, Jodi Taylor, and returning trustee Corinne Kuhnle to school board

ATASCADERO — Before the start of its regularly scheduled meeting on Tuesday, Dec. 17, the Atascadero Unified School District (AUSD) held an organizational meeting at 5:15 p.m. At that meeting, incoming trustee members Joey Arnold and Jodi Taylor were sworn in alongside returning trustee Corinne Kuhnle. Trustee Tracy Ellis-Weit was also selected as board president with Trustee Denise McGrew-Kane taking over Ellis-Weit’s old title of board clerk. The regularly scheduled board meeting started at 7 p.m.

“It was a really nice way to start the evening bringing on and welcoming our two new elected trustees, Trustee Arnold and Trustee Taylor, as well as re-elected Trustee Kuhnle,” said Superintendent Tom Bulter at the start of his Superintendent Report. “It’s great to have the team together and looking forward to doing a lot of good work for our students tonight.” 

During their board reports the rest of the trustees also welcomed the new trustees and expressed looking forward to working together on the board.

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Assistant Superintendent of Business Services Kendyl Darnell then presented the board with the 2024-2025 First Interm Budget Report. The report is as follows.

  • First Interm Budget Revenues: $79,174,852
  • First Interm Budget Expenditures: $85,217,567
  • General Fund Revenues: $65,779,102
  • General Fund Expenditures: $72,787,035

The First Interm Budget Report can be found by going to atasusd.org, clicking on District Services, clicking on Business Services, and then clicking on Audit Reports in the left side menu on the screen. The First Interm Budget Report passed unanimously. 

Darnell then went into Resolution #10-24-25 Authorizing Participation in the Zero Emission School Bus and Infrastructure Incentive Project. At the last meeting on Nov. 19, the Transportation Department gave the board an update on the department and its work to secure a large number of grants to potentially purchase electric buses.

At the start of the item, a community member came forward with a public comment encouraging the trustee board to move forward with the resolution for electric buses.

“The district continues to explore electric buses as a potential option in an effort to have a blended fleet of electric and diesel buses in the future,” stated Darnell. “This particular resolution is a followup item to that informational item and it will allow the district to participate in a grant incentive project that will if selected for funding provide additional dollars to support the infrastructure and purchase of electric buses. If we decide to move forward.”

She went on to say that approval of the resolution does not require the purchase of any electric buses but would shore up and round out the available funding if the board decides to move forward with the initiative in the future. She added that another informational item will come before the board in January 2025.

“So we want to move forward utilizing as much of the grant dollars as possible with minimal impact to the district general fund, but we can’t really make that decision until we know what all of our available resources are,” added Darnell.

The resolution was approved unanimously.

The next regularly scheduled AUSD Board of Trustees meeting will be on Tuesday, Jan. 14, 2025 at 7 p.m.

Feature Image: Atascadero Unified School District Trustees from left: Joey Arnold, Jodi Taylor, and Corinne Kuhnle swearing in during the Tuesday, Dec. 17 school board meeting. Photo by Dwayne Burbach