By David Vitrano

L’Observateur

RESERVE – Local residents wishing to use St. John the Baptist Parish’s public school facilities for graduation parties or a June wedding are in for a bit a price break thanks to an issue brought up by St. John Parish School Board member Russell Jack at Thursday’s meeting.

“I attended several meetings on the west bank, and we do use the schools a lot over there,” said Jack, who represents the west bank.

He said because there is a lack of facilities for large gatherings on the west bank, the community depends on the schools for such functions. A restructuring of the prices for renting the facilities, which the board approved about a year-and-a-half ago, has made the cost too high for some to afford, however.

“I just think it was entirely too high,” said Jack.

The new prices were based on estimates from Executive Director of Business and Finance Felix Boughton on the cost of using utilities as well as paying janitorial and security personnel.

“The cost that he gave us, I found a lot of those numbers weren’t accurate,” said Jack, who added he thought Boughton had underestimated the normal amount of times school facilities are in use during the school year and inflated the amount of setup and cleanup time.

The rate that was approved was $1,250 for group not wishing to use kitchen facilities and $1,400 for groups wishing to use the kitchen.

“Frankly, I think Mr. Jack has a point,” said board member Russ Wise. “There’s nowhere else on the west bank for people to gather. Our schools are focal points for the community.”

Wise’s support for the matter ended at the Mississippi River, however, as he said he believed dropping the prices on the east bank as well would present unfair competition to banquet halls and other meeting places there. Other board members did not see it that way, however, and the School Board eventually agreed to drop the rental price of all school facilities in the parish to $750 plus a $500 deposit until September, when a more accurate price structure could be determined. Wise abstained from the vote.

“This is the price we were charging, and we didn’t put anyone out of business,” said board member Rodney Nicholas.

Jack also asked the administration to look into the feasibility of offering travel stipends to teachers on the west bank in an effort to retain teachers at the two schools there.

“For the past three or four years, we’ve lost a lot of good teachers,” said Jack.

Director of Human Resources Leigh Ann Beard said she was looking into grant opportunities to that end.

“I’ll just have to see what’s out there,” she said.

The board also approved a bid from Hahn Enterprises Inc. for nearly $72,000 for pre-K playground improvements. The project is one of the final ones in the districts facilities upgrades, which began with the passage of a bond issue in 2008. Consulting firm CSRS Project Manager Todd Mann said the projects will be complete one year ahead of schedule.

Lastly, Boughton introduced the proposed budget for the 2012-13 fiscal year.

“At this time last year we were facing a 100-position reduction in force,” said Boughton, who noted that while the district is not out of the woods yet, financially speaking, a reinstatement of some of the MFP funds lost over the past few years has made the budgeting process considerably easier.

The proposed budget includes an almost $5 million increase in state funding over 2011-12. As a result, some of the cuts made recently, such as for athletic and technology allotments, have been reinstated in the 2012-13 budget.

A public hearing on the budget will precede the June 7 School Board meeting, which will be held in the board meeting room in Reserve.