School board discusses budget cuts

At Wednesday night’s Evangeline Parish School Board meeting, the board dove right into addressing discussions that had taken place at the board’s executive committee meeting last week.
During the executive committee’s May 25th meeting, board members were presented with several ways to make necessary cuts in the district to lower the $7 million deficit the state faces in education. There were also discussions had concerning the reduction of special education paraprofessionals by 16 due to the fact that students with Individualized Education Programs (IEP) has dropped from more than 800 to 666.
When it came time for the board to adopt the plan at Wednesday’s meeting, which would could result in the loss of 12 teachers and up to 16 paraprofessionals, board member Ellis Guillory said, “I motion to have this sent back to the executive committee.”
Board member Bobby “Doc” Deshotel said, “I think the committee should meet with the principals to see what they feel they can lose.”
Superintendent Toni Hamlin then addressed the board to further explain the situation at hand for the board members that are not on the executive committee and were not present for its meeting.
Hamlin said, “Some of the teacher cuts will come from teachers that were suppose to get their certification but didn’t, so we cannot hire them. For staffing special education, the fact is, in paraprofessionals we are over staffed. There has been a reduction in pupils with IEPs, and we have to keep the ratios the same.”
Board member Peggy Forman asked, “How will the people let go be determined?”
According to the superintendent, three criteria will be used when deciding who will be let go.
Hamlin said, “This will be based on evaluation, qualification, and if all of these things are met then it will be based on longevity, or years they have been teaching.”
The executive committee has not set a date for their next meeting, but when the meeting is scheduled Hamlin asked that all board members try to attend.
Hamlin said, “I ask all of you to come to the executive committee meeting, because we spent two hours discussing this in detail at last week’s meeting. We have to figure out a way to not have a deficit budget, because as a board, you cannot operate in a deficit budget.”
Other items approved were:
•Change the official journal from the Basile Weekly to Ville Platte Gazette effective July 1, 2016.
•Adoption of the 2016-2017 Salary Schedule.
•Ratify the payment of $17,673.00 to Amplify Core Knowledge for Ville Platte Elementary ELA instructional kits to target at risk population using Title I funds, special education funds, Ville Platte Elementary School funds, and general fund.
•Ratify the payment of $9,198.00 to Louisiana State Bar Association for LSBA annual dues using general fund.
•Payment of $94,289.25 to Edgear for renewal of JPAMS software for 2016-2017 using the general fund and Medicaid.