GLADSTONE — Gladstone School Board meetings will start earlier on the third Monday of the month. The decision to change the meeting time to 6 p.m. from 7 p.m. was unanimously accepted by the board Monday.

Gladstone School Board Vice President Bob Lafave brought up the idea.

“The only question I would have, would it be possible to change all 12 meetings to the six o’clock — to 6 p.m.? Or is there specific reason we prefer the seven versus the six?” Lafave questioned.

In years past, the board met every third Monday of every month at 7 p.m., except for May, June, July, August and September meetings when the board met at 6 p.m.

LaFave said he was bringing up the notion because he had been hearing a lot of feedback about having a consistent earlier time for the board to meet each month.

With school and athletic events starting at 7 p.m., it would be easier for people to attend both board meetings and those events.

The board unanimously approved the change.

The board also elected the new officers, and made committee appointments and designations.

Howlett was elected president, LaFave was elected vice president, Jesse Seger was elected secretary and Henry Knoch was elected treasurer.

Committee appointments remained the same as last year, with the exception of Seger and Neumeier switching positions on the building and grounds and the policy committees; and Knoch and Seger switching positions on the finance and transportation committees.

Board member designations to various boards did not change from last year.

Budget Amendment One, which included the general fund resolution and the school service fund resolution, was also unanimously approved.

The general fund resolution had total revenues at $15,177,157 and total expenditures at $15,220,937, creating an excess of expenditures at $43,780.

The school service fund resolution had total revenues at $856,903 and total expenditures at $856,903, creating neither an excess of expenditures or revenues.

“Overall though, we still are looking in pretty good shape to where we thought we were going to be,” Lisa Boudreau, the business manager for the district, said.

Superintendent Jay Kulbertis explained revenue and expenditures are both up from the initial budget.

“You know that in budget amendment one we’re still conservative in terms of how we budget expenditures. A lot of these expenditures are worst case because we don’t expect it to get worse than this, we expect it to get better,” he said.

The board also:

– designated the business manager and designee as depositories for school funds.

– designated the superintendent and designee for authorization to sign checks, contracts, agreements and purchase orders.

– designated the business manager and designee to assume specified responsibilities of treasurer and electronic funds transfer.

– designated the executive secretary as recording secretary for the board.

– designated the executive secretary to implement the public notice requirements of the open meetings act.

– accepted the letter of intent to retire from Joanne Chouinard

– approved the hire of Emily Paul, who was in attendance of the meeting, as the Junior high Spanish teacher.

– accepted the letter of resignation from Kelly O’Driscoll as theatre advisor.