It appears Kingfisher Public Schools is intent on paying down a lawsuit settlement and keep it off the tax rolls of district landowners.

However, the district still has a couple of hurdles to clear.

Board of education members Monday night voted to table the district’s annual estimate of needs before presenting it to the Kingfisher County Excise Board.

Voting for the move at the September regular meeting were Charles Walker, Carly Franks and Brad Wittrock. The trio barely made a quorum for the board as Dana Golbek and Terry Payne were absent from the meeting.

An estimate of needs is a list of anticipated revenues and expenditures for a school district that is prepared by a third party. In Kingfisher’s case, that is Britton, Kuykendall & Miller CPAs of Weatherford, which annually prepares the document that’s a part of the budget making process.

Once the school board approves the estimate of needs, it has to be presented to the county excise board, which then must determine its adequacy and lawfulness.

Board members opted to hold off on approving the estimate of needs as they still are awaiting an opinion from their legal counsel.

At issue is the ability and method - to pay about $1.75 million as part of a settlement agreement with Mason Mecklenburg that was agreed to last December. That number includes the $1.25 million installment plus more than $500,000 in interest.

The agreement, in part, called for the district to pay Mecklenburg $5 million.

That included a $1.25 million payment within 90 days, which was paid in March 2024.

The remaining $3.75 million - plus interest - was to be paid over three years from the district’s sinking fund, which meant the district’s taxpayers would foot the bill.

Estimates provided to the Times & Free Press projected about a 12 percent increase in ad valorem taxes over that time period.

Wittrock, who voted against the settlement, vowed at that meeting that the district would do its best to keep the balance from going on the tax rolls.

“This has really been a trying thing to try to figure out,” Wittrock said Monday night. “Everybody has really tried to find a way to eliminate the possibility of this hitting our landowners in this district.”

Previous proposals have included paying off the year’s required balance at the time it became due or even paying down the settlement amount before it was assessed to taxpayers.

All avenues produced dead ends, mostly for legal reasons.

“We’ve been trying to work with the excise board to find out how we can adjust our budget to offset this,” Wittrock said Monday. “There’s been quite a few trials with this. It has been quite the effort.

One method is for the district to reduce its general fund millage by 12.96 and designate it for the sinking fund, which was reflected in one of the estimate of needs that was before board members on Monday.

That would reduce the estimate of needs of the general fund to about $14.5 million as opposed to the $16.2 million without doing so.

The board last year approved an estimate of needs of $23 million due, in part, to some major construction projects taking place.

That was about $3 million more than the prior year’s estimate of needs.

Wittrock said he’s employed his own counsel, who advised him that his proposal follows legal guidelines.

“That would be my proposal, that we reduce our estimate of needs by the 12.96 mills and submit that general fund estimate to the excise board,” he said.

However, Franks and Walker wanted confirmation from lawyers hired to represent the board and district.

“We don’t have legal counsel saying we can do this, though, correct?” Franks asked. “The legal counsel that represents this board?”

Walker said the proposal was presented to the board’s attorney late last week.

“He’s currently working on it, but I don’t think he’ll have anything for us today,” Walker said. “We should table it for a special meeting later before the excise board meets on (Sept.) 18th and we can get it finalized by then.”

A special meeting has been set for 10 a.m. Friday.

The county excise board next meets on Sept. 18.

After the vote, Wittrock added that belt-tightening measures would need to be put in place if the estimate of needs he proposed is approved.

He reiterated the district had about $23.1 million in expenditures last year. A total budget with the estimate of needs that’s been proposed would be about $14.5 million.

“So that’s a $9 million reduction in funds available to the school, which is a very substantial hit from our spending last year,” Wittrock said. “We have visited with (district treasurer) Dawn (Tollefson) and it is something that can be done, but it is something that would take everybody’s part to make that possible.

“It is a big hit, but we can do it and we can make it work.”

( Ed. note: See the weekend edition for more action by the board during its September meeting.)