By Rebecca Burk / L’Observateur / January 30, 1998

LUTCHER – Employees in the St. James Parish School System won’t have towait in as many long lines at the bank and will be filling out less depositslips.

Tuesday, the school board voted 7-0 to give Lionel Porta, director ofbusiness services, permission to implement the direct deposit programwith the employees on a voluntary basis.”Instead of producing a paper check for an employee,” he explained, “wewill produce that same information electronically.”

Although employees will not be required to have their checks directdeposited, Porta feels confident many will swing that way in the future.

“I have been getting more and more requests to direct deposit checks fromour employees,” Porta said.

He expects that as soon as the word gets out among employees about thenew program, over 50 percent will be using direct deposit by the time fallrolls around.

One of the perks of direct deposit, Porta said, is it would cost the board alot less money in the long run than producing a single check for eachemployee. To get the whole school system signed up in the direct depositprogram with St. James Bank and Trust Company would cost a mere $40,whereas each single check cut costs about $1.25, considering the cost ofthe check, delivery and postage, Porta said.

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