The St. Landry Parish Council decided to renegotiate the $1,125 it decided to charge the St. Landry Parish School Board for a Head Start site in Opelousas.
The decision to place the monthly site fee on a Jan. 2 Council committee meeting came after Superintendent Patrick Jenkins asked for the reconsideration.
“I’m coming to you just to ask for consideration,” Jenkins said at Wednesday’s Parish Council meeting. “Recently, I was informed that the cost for leasing the property for the Head Start program was passed by the Council to tune of approximately $1,125 per month.”
The School Board began administering the Head Start program in the parish in September with a $6.8 million budget for the 10 months remaining in the fiscal year.
The site, owned by the parish, is on West Martin Luther King Extension, adjoining the parish airport, in Opelousas.
The School Board had paying $60 a year to lease the site.
Jenkins said the $60 — or $5 a month — had paid the fee for 15 years.
“We know that is a very low number so we are not asking for $60 a year. Want want to give something that is fair,” he said.
“But, when you look at $60 a year compared to $1,125 that is approximately a little over 5,000 percent increase that we are looking at,” he said.
Jenkins asked the Council to consider $350 a month.
Councilman Wayne Ardoin, who is chairman of the Council finance committee, said the $60 “is way off,” but also dismissed the $350 offer.
Jenkins said, “I don’t want to debate it in this forum.”
Ardoin noted the Council has “some budget problems also and we can’t keep giving the sink away...”
One of the issues raised by Council members was the School Board failed to negotiate.
Councilman Jerry Red said the Council was left with no choice but to put a price before the School Board.
And, Councilman Harold Taylor said, “I’m not fussing, but you all failed to come to the table.”
Jenkins said he was never given an assessment about how the Council came up with the $1,125 a month rent and he was not given enough notice before the Council voted on the issue in November.
The Council’s attorney, Garret Duplechain, said he provided the School Board’s attorney with a formula that arrived at the $1,125 rent, but never heard a response.
Timmy Lejeune, a parish councilman, said it was the School Board that dropped the ball on negotiations.
Jenkins presented a study by appraiser Don Leger to determine the fair market value of the three acre site.
“I found three vacant sites, each leased by Parish Government, which served as excellent comparables for the site occupied by Opelousas Head Start.
“My investigation of the comparables revealed that all three sites were leased at no fee to the occupants. Two are government entitis and one a non profit. As late as 2017, Parish Government allowed The Emergency Training Center to build on a vacant site, which adjoins the Head Start site, for no fee. Due to those factors, I cannot see any justification for the charging of any lease fee,” he stated.
But in a final page of the analysis, Leger lists a fee of $350.
The Parish Council has not yet approved a budget for 2019, but has been scrambling to overcome rising costs.
At a finance committee on Monday, School Board members were reminded the school system expects to operate at a $2 million deficit in its current fiscal year. The Head Start program is federally-funded.
