Sevastopol School Budget 2013-2014 Reviewed

• At the annual meeting of Sevastopol School District held on Aug. 20, Superintendent Linda Underwood broke down the school budget for the coming year. She said the district anticipates $7,802,779 in revenue during the 2013-14 school year and expenses of $7,768,041.32, leaving an estimated $34,737.68 in surplus. However, she added that “everything might be a little iffy” until the final student count is taken the third Friday in September.

The property tax levy was set at $7.072 million and a mill rate of $5.24  (up from $5.12 the previous school year).

• The Door County Sheriff’s Department wants to remind you not to give your PIN number or account information away. Scam phone calls and text messages that say customers’ debit cards have been compromised have recently been reported.

If you already gave information away, monitor your account and report fraud to law enforcement and your financial institution.

• An amendment has been offered on Assembly Bill 182, which would allow the sale of home-baked goods in face-to-face transactions. The amendment would prohibit door-to-door sales. For more information about the bill, read Cookie Bill Could Be Icing on the Cake, published on May 24, 2013 in the Peninsula Pulse.

• The Wisconsin Department of Transportation has information on the $3.2 million Sister Bay road construction project on its website at dot.wisconsin.gov/projects/neregion/42/index.htm. There you can read about the project overview, schedule, traffic impacts, environmental issues and other information such as details on the In This Together program for businesses that will be affected by the construction project. Actual construction begins in July 2014.

• It’s back to the drawing board for the two exclusive Door County properties that went up for auction to the highest bidder earlier this month. “This is so frustrating,” said Todd Good, president of Accelerated Marketing Group of Newport Beach, Calif., the company hired by property owner Allen Musikantow to auction off the property – the 14,000-square-foot La Maison des Deux Fleurs in the gated community of Marshall’s Point on North Bay in the Town of Liberty Grove, and a horse ranch in Sister Bay. Good said the high bidder was from the Chicago area. The high bids were $5,150,000 for the mansion and $2.6 million for the ranch. After the buyer was notified by the escrow company that he had the high bid, the deal called for the buyer to submit cashier’s checks in the amount of $250,000 for the mansion and $100,000 for the ranch as earnest money. When the buyer did not submit those checks by Friday, Aug. 23, the owner considered the buyer in default and pulled the plug on the deal. “We are talking to other people who submitted bids,” Good said.