An expanded physical plant and equipment levy allows the AHST Community School District to collect up to $1 per $1,000 taxable valuation for those specific purposes. The levy will be a combination of property taxes and income sales tax, and the district does not have to collect the full amount each year.

Both school districts’ voters had to approve the reorganization by a simple majority. One over vote, with both yes and no selected, and one under vote, with neither choice selected, were recorded, according to results released Tuesday night by the Fremont County Auditor’s Office. Early returns showed Hamburg firmly split 22-22 in absentee ballots. Hamburg residents had bemoaned the decision to create a joint high school in 2012, and the Hamburg School Board decided earlier this year not to renew the contract of a shared superintendent with Farragut, which forced both districts to hire independent leadership.

Dee Owen, the deputy auditor in charge of elections, said a recount would be done if someone officially requests it. She said the ballots were hand-counted Tuesday evening. Turnout was about 35 percent in Farragut and about 45 percent in Hamburg, according to unofficial returns.

Without the reorganization, the Hamburg and Farragut districts have pledged to continue whole-grade sharing. Officials from both districts will go before the School Budget Review Committee in January and the Iowa Department of Education in February to address deficiencies and overspending. Officials have warned that significant cuts may be necessary to address spending in excess of each district’s spending authority. With enrollment under the threshold the state considers viable, Hamburg and Farragut also face the possibility of being dissolved if they cannot address the state’s concerns.

In April of 2011, Beyer became the payee for Social Security payments to his son. As part of the plea deal, Beyer admitted that he did not use all of the money for the benefit of his son, cheating the 21-year-old out of almost $17,000. Sentencing in the matter is scheduled for 3 p.m. on Jan. 26, 2015, in federal court.

Beyer – along with his wife, Rebecca, and stepson Ryan Smith – were arrested in June of 2013 on suspicion of first-degree kidnapping for alleged abuse against Beyer’s then-20-year-old developmentally delayed son. Rebecca Beyer was also charged with willful injury causing serious injury stemming from the abuse, including charges that she would heat forks and spoons on a stove and burn her stepson. Smith accepted a plea deal in May for an aggravated misdemeanor charge.

James and Rebecca Beyer were both accused of abusing the man, including keeping him chained inside a detached garage at her Avenue C home. James Beyer had been scheduled to face trial on Tuesday for the state charges, but the matter has been continued as prosecutors look to finish both cases at the same time, according to Amy Zacharias with the Pottawattamie County Attorney’s Office.