With plans to become an enterprise of the school district in order, the Dell Rapids Community Haven before- and after-school program was discussed at the school board’s special June 25 meeting to approve policy and fee changes.

The Community Haven Board has voted to incorporate, according to district business manager Barb Littel, who said that the group would be under the enterprise fund with its own code and bank of funds.

Board member Matt Weiland expressed concern that the funds would bleed over from the general fund, negating the notion of keeping the Haven budget on its own, but Littel said that the monies would be kept completely as a separate enterprise.

“From an accounting perspective, this will be cleaner,” board president Brian Davis said.

The district has, in the past, handled funds and offered services such as busing to the Haven, but the before- and after-school program’s board maintained operations and raised the money to run the group.

Changes to the adopted policies include all references to the “Haven Board of Directors” amended to “Haven Board of Advisors,” as well as specifying that the program is for students in the Dell Rapids School District, as opposed to the “Dell Rapids area.”

The policy book also changes the emergency evacuation site from the Lutheran Church to the new elementary building on 15th Street. The old elementary building will be used as the site when students are being housed in the new elementary building.

Medication policies were also altered, with the addition of the phrases “name of medication,” “correct dosage,” and “time to be given” to the existing requirements for distribution of meds to participants during Haven hours.

In addition to the approved changes, superintendent Tom Ludens said that Haven board is looking at increasing the program’s afternoon rates from $3.50 to $4 at a later date, as stipulated in the adopted fee scale. Also added to the fee scale document was a note that the Haven may begin charging for after-school transportation in the 2012-13 school year.

The approval of the Haven policies and fees at the Monday night meeting further solidified the new position of the program as part of the school, as opposed to the “gray area” in between, Ludens said.

Previously the policies and fees of the group were approved by the Haven board, as opposed to the school board. Davis said that these policies could always be amended as the boards see fit in the future.

“To have an instrument in place, then, would allow us to adjust later,” he said.