Jeannine Lejeune/Crowley Post-Signal
Through a item in each of its committees, the Acadia Parish School Board is bracing for funding hits and trying to do so while staying away from the classrooms.
There were a few items that took the school board by surprise since adopting the 2016-2017 fiscal year budget, mainly a $2.1 million hit to the MFP – Minimum Foundation Program. The school board learned that the power plant they waited years to be able to draw sales tax from had actually increased the property value of the parish, therefore dropping its MFP funding for the school district.
So, through revisions of roughly $1.8 million, the school board now only faces a $1.65 million deficit at the end of this year, not the $3.4 million it stared down a few weeks ago.
“If you look at it, the revenue saw a decrease of $3.4 million and expenses went up how much?” asked Superintendent John Bourque.
“Expenses went up about $250,000,” answered Justin Carrier.
“So, we cut it down to $1.6 (million), and most of that is personnel at the central office,” continued Bourque. “And I think as Justin looks at it more, we’ll close that gap (more).”
Bourque has talked about the issues that are facing Acadia and school districts across the state thanks to the state’s financial situation and the downturn in the economy.
To face this, the school board is proposing several ideas, including reductions in central office staff, once more and focusing on attrition and classroom sizes as a means of reducing staff sizes instead of hitting classrooms head on.
“We’re trying to do everything we can not to touch the classrooms,” said Bourque.
The school district will now move forward with the hopes of reaching break-even status over two to three years.
“We’re looking at about a $3.4 million reduction from last fiscal year,” said Carrier. “That’s a lot of money to make up in one year.
“Luckily, through savings by the board and the superintendent in years past, we had a fund balance to cover (some of this loss). Our goal is to get it to a break even point within the next two to three years.
“It’s just almost impossible to have a reduction in revenue of $3.4 million and break even.”
While the budget revisions were focused on during the Budget and Finance Committee and are heading to the full board for approval, staffing concerns were the focus of the Personnel, Insurance and Curriculum Committee.
“We will begin having staffing meetings with individual principals on March 6,” said Ellan Kay Baggett during the PIC meeting. “We’re going to staff like we normally do, based on numbers of students.
“As Mr. Bourque said earlier, we will use attrition to bring our numbers down as we can.”
Realistically, to some extent classes will feel the effects, of sorts, but it is not in the way teachers are mostly focusing on likely.
Teachers may be shuffled around the parish to fill voids instead of losing their jobs.
“We will have some teachers that leave, we always do,” said Baggett. “As they leave we may pull a teacher from a different school to move into that teachers’ position.
“There may be some complaining that ‘I’m not in the school I was in, and I want to be here’, but...
“... you have a job,” finished one school board member.
“You have a job,” finished Baggett.
Then classroom sizes will also be looked at by the school district and principals alike. In fact, when Bourque and the central office meets with principals next month they will start to have a clearer picture. But for that to work, Bourque explained that he needs principals to observe all the classrooms to understand the size of the classes and to make a plan. The school district is flexible, but it may be time to increase class sizes in some cases.
For starters, the ratio Acadia has set for its standards is 24:1 in grades up to fourth and 26:1 in grades fifth through 12th. But, there are exceptions to that on both sides, certainly if there are 40 first graders at the school, class sizes will fall around the 20 mark and in high school physical education classes, that ratio almost doubles (45:1).
These are the avenues the district will focus on to make sure it is not harming education for the student, the school or the district.
“We’ve been very fortunate with the class sizes (typically) ranging from 18 to 20,” said Bourque. “When you say 24, they kind of lose it, but we’ll have to tighten up some classes.
“We just told the principals to come with a plan, and we’ll work with them.”
Another item from the BF Committee meeting also has budget concerns and has now been tabled until the board can look at all of its options.
A driver-owned bus will hit the maximum years allowed on the road (25) after this school year which means the school board has to replace it in some way.
The bus is one that also has a wheelchair lift making in the pricier range.
In the long run, purchasing the bus at a cost of between $89,000 to $90,000, would make the most sense, but in a year where the school board already has a deficit to begin, even piggy-backing off of Lafayette Parish’s bid may not be the smartest play.
To lease the bus, the cost would likely be in the $15,000 to $16,000 range each year.
So while the committee mulls over the particulars, it was moved to table the bus discussion as they still have time to make a decision ahead of the 2017-18 school year.