School Board receives mixed bag of financial news

The St. Mary Parish School Board received a mixed bag of financial news Thursday.
School officials announced sales tax collections were below budget predictions for the first quarter of the fiscal year. At the same time, they announced an unexpected windfall affecting the next budget year.
Chief Financial Officer Alton Perry said sales tax collections are almost nine percent below budget predictions for the first three months of the fiscal year and 16.2 percent below collections compared to the same period the previous year.
In real numbers, that means the school system has collected $450,584 less than it thought it would since July.
Perry said after the meeting that it’s not time to worry yet. He believes it’s a time of year that shoppers don’t really spend a lot of money because they’re holding onto it for Christmas.
Meanwhile, changes in the Teachers Retirement System of Louisiana employer contribution mean a savings of $825,000 to the district in the next budget year. Also, the Louisiana School Employees Retirement System will see a similar drop in contribution for a savings of $75,000, Superintendent Donald Aguillard said.
The $900,000 drop in costs may ease an uncertain future, but Aguillard cautioned the board not to find ways to spend the funds just yet.
He reminded them that the current budget does call for a dip into the fund balance to balance the budget.
In other action during Thursday’s regular meeting of the board, they:
—Learned from Aguillard that the release of letter grades for schools should be toward the end of October. At the same time, he noted, schools are nine weeks into the school year and still do not know if they will be administering Partnership for Assessment of Readiness for College and Careers testing for grades three through eight and whether that testing will be computerized or paper and pencil.
—Approved use of a safety grant totaling $28,597, a refund from its self-funded worker’s compensation program, to purchase extra cameras for school buses. During the budget negotiations, one-third of buses got the update. This grant adds more buses to that list.
—Authorized the first steps toward maintenance tax renewals.
—Hired architect Carl Blum to oversee a partial reroofing project at Wyandotte Elementary scheduled to begin during the summer.
Absent from the meeting were board members Marilyn LaSalle and Wayne Deslatte.