Harlan Kirgan
The St. Landry Parish School Board was cited for failing to provide proper oversight of school activity funds from which $4,252,231 was spent in the year ending June 30, 2018.
The 33 schools in the system collected $315.86 per student and spent $322.56 per student in the audited period. The per student figures are from the audit’s report of 13,183 students in the schools as of June 30, 2018.
The activity fees have long been a target of Eunice School Board member Albert Hayes Jr.
“My push was to eliminate it all together,” he said of the fees.
“It is an unfair burden with families with multiple kids in school,” he said.
“The only people that are smiling are the payday loans because you have to come across with quite a bit of money if you have a family of three kids in school,” he said.
The 33 schools in the parish collected $4,163,927 in activity fees in the audited year. The total balance at July 1, 2017, was $2,024,595 and the balance at the end of the fiscal year was $1,936,291.
The fees are one of the audit findings by Kolder, Champagne, Slaven and Company reported to the Board at the Finance Committee meeting on Monday. The audit was released on the state Legislative Auditor’s website on Jan. 18. The audit was completed on Dec. 18.
The audit stated there is lack of oversight by management over employees administering the school activity funds.
“The lack of adequate oversight provides for the opportunity of misappropriation of cash and for funds designated for a particular club to be expended by another group,” the audit stated.
The auditors recommended, “The School Board should implement procedures to ensure that proper oversight is provided over all school activity funds through regular review and monitoring of account activity.”
Management’s corrective plan was: “The School Board performs routine audits of the school activity funds. In the past, school administrators allowed certain groups to spend funds that were not available to their group, which created negative cash balances for some groups. All school administrators have been informed of the proper procedures for spending school activity funds.”
Hayes said he finds support from other Board members to eliminate the fees, but the amount of money involved would have an impact on the total budget.
“The schools will tell you that it is an absolute necessity because the activity fees cover some of the things that are not provided by the School Board,” he said.
“I’m still saying that it should be eliminated altogether,” he said. “There is no oversight over those monies as you can see in the audit.”
Hayes said it is difficult to monitor the funds.
Another problem with the fees is that if they are not paid, students may find they are restricted in areas such as buying snacks, he said.
And, on top of the fees are other expenses such as uniforms, raffles and other fundraisers, he said.
About 80 percent of the school system’s budget is spent on employee salaries and benefits, he said. “That doesn’t leave very much.”
Hayes said, “It is going to take some doing to really look at what’s being collected, what’s really needed.”
Mary Ellen Donatto, also a Eunice School Board member and president of the Board, said the fees are a statewide concern.
“... this is has become an issue to the point where it has become necessary for legislative action to take place,” Donatto said. “That’s how serious it has gotten.”