Lafourche school board approves 2011 budget

In light of the sputtering economy, school districts have taken significant financial hits for the upcoming fiscal year, and have had to cut and rearrange their budgets wherever necessary.

For 2010, Lafourche Parish School Board has a budget of $161,338,924, which equals a 3 percent decrease from the 2010 budget. The parish’s General Fund totals $13.4 million, but only $90,974 is for general use, as the rest is reserved for salaries, textbooks, technology, section 16 land and maintenance.

“The state is looking at us and saying ‘Y’all are OK, y’all got $13 million, you should be fat and happy,'” board member G.A. Rodrigue said, who worries about the possibility of the school board going bankrupt. “We’re not always going to be fat and happy.”

“To say the least, this result is disappointing,” Business Manager Don Gaudet wrote in the budget message of the unreserved/undesignated General Fund amount.

“But it is important to understand what happened in the last two years to bring us to this point,” Gaudet wrote. “Compared to the fiscal year 2009, there is nearly $6 million less in local revenues and $4.3 million less in Minimum Foundation Formula funds available to the General Fund.”

According to Gaudet, there was a 128-student reduction in calculating the Minimum Foundation Program (MFP) allotment for the upcoming year, and nearly $2 million of last year’s MFP funding was federal dollars that had to be cut this year.

As a result, the General Fund had to pick up salaries that were originally funded by that $2 million, resulting in salary reductions totaling approximately $6.1 million to offset the decrease. Seventy-three full and part-time positions were removed from instructional categories, and 72 full and part-time positions were removed from support positions.

The state of Louisiana is also, according to Gaudet, passing along all of the additional costs of retirement to the local systems.

“On the revenue side the two worst things are the decline in sales tax revenue and reduction in not only revenue from the state but on passing on costs to us,” Lafourche Parish Communications Specialist Floyd Benoit said. “The state started the program for national teacher board certification, where each teacher receives $5,000 once they are certified. But now we have to pay it.”

Gaudet said the state is not eliminating costly mandates to help ease the parish’s financial burden, either. One of those mandates is to have certified teachers run in-school suspension.

“We have in-school suspension because we want to keep the kids in school, but it’s not the same as a full class, so we run them with paraprofessionals,” he said. “But the federal and state push is to run them with full teachers, and if you do that, it’s going to be what hits your unreserved/undesignated budget.”

But despite the multitude of cuts Lafourche Parish has had to endure, Benoit said there is a bright side.

“We have a certified teacher in every single classroom,” he said, but noted the classroom sizes had to be slightly larger to make that possible.

And although the 2011 Comprehensive Original Budget was approved by the school board, cuts may still have to be made in the future.

“I’m trying to reduce the cost where we don’t need it,” Gaudet said, and added if something could be cut at a comfortable level, it would be.