ERIK SANZENBACH / L’Observateur / November 8, 1999

RESERVE-Despite a booming national economy, the St. John Parish SchoolBoard is going through a bit of a financial crisis.

To offset a projected $2 million deficit, the board voted to transfer $1.1million from the construction fund to the general fund at Thursday night’s meeting.

Citing a declining sales tax revenue and the increase in health insurance costs, Felix Boughton, Director of Business Operations, recommended the transfer.

He also said that auditors had recommended that there be at least 5 percent of total revenue in the bank to offset any unexpected expenses in the coming year.

With the transfer of the $1.1. million, there is a comfortable pad for theschool board to operate. The resolution was passed 10-1 with FelixLeBouef abstaining.

Boughton said now that all the capital outlay programs have been met, the construction fund can be used for other purposes. Twenty percent can beused for general funds uses, 40 percent can be used for curriculum use and the remaining 40 percent could be used for salaries.

On that note, Superintendent Chris Donaldson asked the board to consider a one-time salary increase of two percent for school employees.

Despite the good news that the State Board of Education’s Minimum Foundation Program has allocated an additional $1.4 million to St. JohnParish, this extra money is offset by a sales tax shortfall of $1 million, and a 40 percent increase in health insurance costs of which the board pays 100 percent.

Added to those problems, the State Department of Education mandates that all parishes implement a summer remediation program for all fourth and eighth graders that do not pass the LEAP exams. The approximate costfor this extra school time s is $40,000.

The employees who attended the meeting were not pleased with Donaldson’s proposal. They were hoping for a recurring salary increase, nota one-time only raise.

Donaldson says, “A recurring raise will result in a deficit by June 30, 2001, according to my projections.”Iona Holloway, an employee at East St. John High School was angry thatshe was not allowed to ask questions on the matter, and she seemed skeptical about the figures and talk of deficit.

“When is this deficit supposed to occur?” Holloway asked . “and why can’twe use the transfer of money from the construction fund to fund the salary increases? Was this deficit projected when Donaldson got a raise?” Boughton replied, “Superintendent Donaldson has never gotten a raise. Thelast time the superintendent’s office got a raise was three years ago.”Back then, Cleveland Farlough was superintendent.

Donaldson told the board and employees, “My goal is to use whatever funds we have to raise employees’ salaries.”Boughton was sympathetic: “I wish we could give them a raise. Theemployees deserve it, but we just don’t have the money.”A declining sales tax revenue seems to be the biggest culprit in this financial problem.

“We wanted to give a recurring 3 percent raise with the MFP increase,” said Boughton, “But the sales tax revenue has gone down four months in a row.”This is not just isolated to St. John Parish either. Donaldson reported thatschool superintendents all over the state are experiencing the same decline in sales tax.

“Sales tax revenue is a cyclical thing,” said Boughton, “We just have to wait until it goes up again.”A special meeting was called for Monday, Nov. 8, at 8 p.m., to discussemployee salaries and how to resolve the huge increase in health insurance premiums.

In other school board business, board member, C. J. Watkins askedDonaldson what has been done about the problem with school band uniforms.

The superintendent reported that a meeting was held on Oct. 28 with theprincipals and band directors of East St. John High, West St. John High, theGlade School and Leon Godhchaux Junior High.

Band directors reported that all band uniforms are in very poor shape, and that most of them don’t fit the students. Because of this, East St. JohnHigh band members are performing in their school uniforms while West St.

John students are marching in sweat suits bought by the band director.

The last time band uniforms were purchased was 1993. Donaldson saidthat Nathan Stein, Director of Finances was researching the prices of uniforms.

Watkins asked Stein when the students could expect new uniforms.

Stein replied that it would be “premature to make any purchase until we have all the reports from all the band directors.”A frustrated Watkins asked when could the schools take delivery on the uniforms once they were purchased.

“It would be three to four months,” replied Stein.”We won’t have theuniforms before Mardi Gras.”Angered over the delay, Watkins requested that the issue be carried over to the next regularly scheduled school board meeting.

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