Board Unveils Mid-Year Budget Cuts

April 8, 2010

Several mid-year budget revisions for the 2009-10 fiscal school year were approved at the Tuesday meeting of the St. Landry Parish School Board. Some of the revisions represented decreases to specific programs or allocations; others represented increases.

The most dramatic cuts were made to the Ensuring Numeracy for All and Ensuring Literacy for All programs.

State funding has decreased by $32,907 for Ensuring Numeracy for All and by $30,261 for Ensuring Literacy for All.

The programs provide extra help for at-risk students in the areas of math and language arts, respectively.

"Those are budget cuts due to state budget cuts," School Board member Scott Richard said.

The mid-year budget adjustment should affect programs only through the end of the year, Richard said, and will probably result in a decrease in purchases of materials or supplies.

The most significant increases in the budget were a $76,722 increase in the budget for the Rural Education Achievement Program Grant and $22,417 in the Carl Perkins Grant.

The funds for the Rural Education Achievement Program are to be used for the salaries of teachers and

substitute teachers, tuition reimbursement for teachers and for additional supplies.

The additional funding for the Carl Perkins Grant will be used to purchase supplies for career and technical education centers.

Also during the meeting, Superintendent of Schools Michael Nassif announced a favorable resolution to what he termed a lingering problem related to the federal desegregation plan.

The U.S. Department of Justice had voiced concerns about how some of the special education programs were administered in the parish.

But after intensive monitoring, the Justice Department gave the parish’s special education programs a "very favorable recommendation," Nassif told the School Board.

"They are satisfied that we are now in compliance with all of our issues," he said.

The resolution of those issues will move the district closer to unitary status, or full compliance with the desegregation plan, Nassif said.

In other matters:

· The School Board unveiled its new Web-based student information system, called Pearson PowerSchool, which will be fully operational by fall. The program, provided by Excel Software Professionals Ltd. of Baton Rouge, will allow parents access to their children’s grades as soon as they are posted by teachers and will allow them to track such items as absences from specific classes each day.

· A plan that outlines consequences for students who take electronic devices, including cell phones to school was approved. The plan will take effect in the fall and will involve incremental consequences from warnings to temporary confiscation of the devices, which will be released only to the parent or guardian of the student.