By Harlan Kirgan
Editor
St. Landry Parish voters left no doubt about their opposition to two School Board tax propositions on Saturday.
With all 92 precincts in the parish reporting, about three-quarters of voters voted “No” on the propositions.
The 10-year, 11.3- mill tax to pay for school employee pay raises received 3,718 “Yes” votes and 10,163 “No” votes, according to the state Secretary of State website. Turnout was 23 percent.
The second proposition, a 20-year, 12.1-mill to fund a $99 million capital improvement plan failed by a 3,592 to 10,129 vote.
Both taxes had to pass to go into effect.
The pay raise lost in 75 of the 92 precincts and tied in one precinct.
The capital improvement tax lost in 76 of the 92 precincts.
There was other evidence of an anti-tax sentiment among voters.
A five-year, 10-mill property tax in Fire District 3 failed by a 1,929 to 3,410 vote or by a 64 percent “No” vote.
The School Board’s Executive, Finance, and Buildings, Lands and Sites committees met Monday in Opelousas.
The election was not on the agenda, but the vote came up frequently during and after the meeting.
After the meeting, Eunice area School Board member Mary Ellen Donatto attributed the loss to an anti-tax mood.
The capital improvement plan varied across the parish with some areas targeted for new schools and others for grade reconfigurations, or both.
“There were areas that were not losing anything and getting a new school and they said ‘no.’ They said ‘no’ everywhere,” she said.
There are about 13,500 students in the school system and the vote indicated even parents of students did not vote for the taxes, she said.
Albert Hayes Jr., also a Eunice Board member, said during the meeting the vote indicated even school employees and their families did not turn out to vote for the taxes.
Hayes’ scenario is there are about 2,000 school employees and each might have five family members, which should have meant 10,000 votes for each tax.
What comes next is up in the air.
Board President Candace Gerace said the School Board needs to schedule a retreat to discuss its next step.
Among the action items for Buildings, Lands and Sites committee members were roof repairs at several schools.
Gerace said a retreat would allow Board members to start looking at repair plans.
“I don’t want to throw good money after bad because we have very little,” she said.
Superintendent Patrick Jenkins said it is time to look at options for the school district.
“We have to make some really tough decisions,” he said.
“What I have asked Mrs. Gerace is possibly in the very very near future is to try to have a Board retreat so that we can sit down and say ‘OK, where are our dollars?’” he said.
Jenkins added, “Look at the dollars we currently have and look at how much it is going to cost us to get to where we need to be academically. See what we can sacrifice because we are going to have to sacrifice some things we didn’t want to...”
One thing that could happen is the Board could implement changes that don’t result in building or renovating schools.
If the taxes had passed, Eunice’s Highland Elementary would have closed in the next school year to make way for the construction of a new school on the campus. Highland Elementary students would have been distributed among the other three elementary schools in Eunice.
“We are going to have that discussion soon so that staff and everyone else can know if we are still going to move forward with that,” Jenkins said.
The plan had been for Central Middle School to close in two years and its students sixth grade students sent to the junior high school and fifth graders to elementary schools.
Without a new elementary school building capacity becomes an issue, Jenkins said.
In Opelousas, a plan to create a city-wide pre-kindergarten will move forward, he said.
Opelousas elementary schools are to be broken into kindergarten through third grade schools, and fourth- to fifth-grade schools, The plan has raised opposition among Park Vista Elementary School constituents. Park Vista, a C school, would have some of its students sent to the D and F schools in Opelousas.
Lawtell Elementary is headed toward its maximum capacity and rezoning may be required to relieve the enrollment pressure, Jenkins said.
Jenkins said he is uncertain about the future of schools in north St. Landry Parish.
Port Barre High School was deemed in planning as the one high school in the parish that needed replacing. Now, “They’ll have a school until they don’t have a school there,” Jenkins said.
Schools in southern St. Landry Parish, from Cankton to Arnaudville, will continue unchanged, he said.
The tax plan included closing schools in Opelousas, Eunice and other parts of the parish, and some of those actions remain in place, he said.
Jenkins said he is unsure why the tax proposals failed.
“We need to go back. I think we are going to have to take some time to talk with constituents throughout the parish,” he said.
“There was a lot of misinformation about the tax,” he said. “Sometimes you can’t control social media.”
Jenkins added, “We have to able to communicate with everybody a little bit better.”
