An already tight budget for Lafayette Parish schools will bring even tougher funding decisions to Lafayette Parish School Board members when they begin budget workshops next month - as the last of the $16 million in federal stimulus money used by the school district over the past two years is gone.
According to a report by Marsha Sills published Monday in The Advocate, the School Board - already faced with an additional $6 million in contribution to the state’s retirement system during this year’s budget process - has relied on $7.5 million in Title I stimulus money and $8.5 million in stimulus education money to fund the district’s newest preschool classes and an extended learning program that offers additional tutoring and enrichment to students after school.
But with the loss of the millions in federal stimulus dollars - and little optimism that the state will offer additional program money due to a BESE-approved freeze on school spending levels - the school system is looking into alternative funding sources while the School Board preps itself to make the ultimate decisions on which programs will continue receiving funding and whether any programs will be eliminated:
For the past two years, eight of the district’s 50 preschool classes have been funded by nearly $1.9 million in Title 1 stimulus funds. The additional funding made it possible for the district to expand its program to 3-year-olds.
The ... stimulus funds also paid for four of the dozen school sites that offered extended learning programs - after school enrichment and tutoring - and summer remediation for fourth- and eighth-graders who failted the LEAP test. LEAP remediation is a state requirement, but districts don’t receive additional funding to operate the sessions.The report points out that last year, the school system entered its fiscal year with a $14 million deficit, which forced the School Board to streamline some programs and increase the student-teacher ratio. Those attempts, however, were not enough to make ends meet - and the board was forced to dip in to more than $5 million of its reserve fund.
MAY 17 Here's a column from James Gill, this time in the Advocate. Gill, who has jumped ship from the Picayune, writes about the absurdity of dueling polls in this post. The numbers are so wildly different, it is obvious that both sides are "cooking the books," he writes. In particular, he looks at Sen. Mary Landrieu, and how her recent actions in DC have been received by those polled. Gill's acerbic, amusing prose is a welcome addition to a paper so conservative as to be occasionally lacking in personality.
MAY 17 Blogger Tom Aswell continues delivering bombshells about the state education department and Gov. Jindal's education "reform" efforts. In this post, he reports that students in the Shreveport area have been signed up for a charter school without their knowledge or consent. Most interesting to Aswell is how this Texas-based charter (with ties to GOP types) got the personal student information it has, if the students didn't give it.
MAY 17 This post by JR Ball in the Baton Rouge Business Report is an interesting tongue-in-cheek look at recent Baton Rouge economic development efforts. Among the items he examines is the idea that gaining a Costco makes BR a "world-class city." (Really? All you need is a different brand of Sam's? MK!) This effort, and other recent ones, are all built on the taxpayer's back, with tax zones, tax incentives and tax rebates, Ball writes.
MAY 17 Blogger CB Forgotston is critical of the legislature's reliance on a revenue-estimating committee's decision to include projected tax amnesty income in this year's forecast. That's a problem, CB posts, because the deadline for these people to pay their taxes is June 30, 2014. So when do you think these people who haven't paid taxes in years are going to pay their taxes? Surely not before June 30, and that means the money won't be there for this year's budget, he argues.
MAY 17 Here's an interesting blog out of California by a Hollywood writer, attorney and academic named Brian Alan Lane. He blogs about higher ed, and was a whistle-blower in a scandal over false credentials. In this post, he takes aim at LSU's new top dog, King Alexander. It's convoluted and a little confusing, but it sure makes Alexander a lot more interesting than he was yesterday.
MAY 17 Blogger Robert Mann writes about the LSU Board's refusal to allow Dr. Fred Cerise to testify before the legislature about Gov. Jindal's plan to close down all the state's charity hospitals and dump the poor on the private system. It's hard to imagine anyone more qualified than Cerise to testify about that, so why would anyone try to prevent him doing so? Mann thinks it is because the powers that be aren't interested in hearing any truth about the plan.
MAY 17 This post on the Louisiana Sinkhole Bugle, a blog that notes developments in the Bayou Corne and Jefferson Island salt domes, talks about a proposed expansion of the salt dome storage under Lake Peigneur in Iberia Parish. Residents are working against it for several reasons, including two biggies: the sinkhole disaster in Bayou Corne and the continuing, unexplained bubbling on the surface of the Lake.
MAY 17 NOLA police arrested more people Thursday accused of either being involved in the Mother's Day shooting or hiding the suspect afterward, this Gambit story reports. The NOLA police chief said he suspects the whole thing was gang-related and throws out a challenge to the gangs: he's got informants now, he says, and he knows a lot more than the gangs want him to know. The people who live in the neighborhoods terrorized by gangs are ready to talk, he says.
Most Read
in case you missed it
Subscribe to this comment's feed