Board approves audit; appoints Karl Grambau as varsity girls’ basketball coach

by Peter Jakey–Managing Editor

The Rogers City Area Schools received a clean audit opinion from Schulze, Oswald, Miller and Edwards, P.C. of Alpena, the firm conducting the annual audit of the school district.

Sandra Edwards presented the 2023-2024 fiscal year audit at Monday’s monthly meeting that was later approved by the four members of the board of education in attendance, that was just enough for a quorum to conduct business. 

“The audit starts with our opinions, how we get to those opinions, the responsibility of management in the audit and the responsibility of the auditors within the audit,” said Edwards at the podium, before turning to the narrative of the report, specifically the fund balance.

“You will see 10 years of changes in the fund balance,” said Edwards. “What we can see here is, considering all that has happened with school finances, this is a quick snapshot of how the fund balance has increased and spent down to give back to the students, over the normal course of how school finances work.” The current fund balance stands at 11 percent.

“The number you want to stay above is 10 percent, so we just want to be mindful of working toward an increase of the fund balance for 2024-2025 and future years,” she said. “Maybe, don’t have such a spend down.”

Edwards further commented that the last few years have been “COVID-friendly,” referring to the additional dollars that came in during the pandemic. Her firm worked with the administrative staff “on the things we think will have an effect on school finances in years to come.”

Edwards commended staff for their assistance throughout the process of preparing this year’s audit. It was approved unanimously 4-0 with Ivy Bredow, Tom Catalano and Shannon McKinstry not in attendance.

In other business:

—The board approved the hiring of winter coaches with no changes to boys’ basketball, wrestling or bowling. Derek McLennan will be the varsity boys’ basketball coach, Steve Paull returns to wrestling for his second season and longtime bowling coach Brian Bannasch is back in the volunteer position.

However, with Amber Clark resigning from her duties as girls’ varsity basketball coach because her family is moving to Georgia, the position was posted twice with no candidates coming forward. With that, the decision was made to bring athletic director Karl Grambau, who is the longtime varsity softball coach, out of retirement to take over, while Colleen Wood will handle the junior varsity squad. Grambau coached the girls’ team from 1987-2005, winning a district title in 2001. That team also won a regional semifinal game before losing to Maple City Glen Lake and that year’s Miss Basketball, Liz Shimek. In seven seasons as varsity boys’ coach he had a 90-66 coaching record. 

Karl Grambau

“We have not received any letters of interest,” said superintendent Nick Hein. “We realize this is not an ideal situation to be using the athletic director…but based on Karl’s years of coaching a variety basketball, both boys and girls, it is probably the best option for students. 

“We want to get a person in place and build the program. We were very happy to have Amber and we thought she was going to stay here. Things changed in her life and we have a season to start and we have to put the best person that we have available in that position and that’s Karl.”