EPSB discusses major surpluses to end fiscal year

The Evangeline Parish School Board received good news concerning its budget during the board’s meeting last Wednesday.
During the meeting Superintendent of Schools, Darwan Lazard said, “It is our duty as educators to be fiscally responsible to the tax payers and that is something that is very concerning to me.”
Lazard then went on to say that the school board’s CPA Vic Slaven reported in January that the school board had spent $847,000.00 over what it intended to spend last year.
Lazard said, “If you remember in January, Slaven came before us and said to us that we had expended $847,000.00 above what we were hoping to spend as of June of 2016. He said to us that if we spend another $847,000.00 over we would be down from $1,000,000.00 unassigned to $200,000.00.
“With that in mind, we operated very carefully.”
Chief Financial Officer for EPSB, Amy LaFleur then shared that for the fiscal year that ended on June 30, 2017, “all major funds had surpluses.”
On Wednesday, August 30, 2017, at 4:30 p.m. the Executive Committee will hold a meeting to discuss the proposed 2017-2018 budget.
Head of the school district’s maintenance, Jason Hazelton then addressed the board to inform the members of what he and his maintenance crew have been able to accomplish over the summer at each school.
Hazelton said, “We have done a lot with a small crew over the summer. We started going clean every window unit in every classroom at every school, and we only have a few left to complete.”
The board then discussed the repairs that need to be made to Pine Prairie High School’s football stadiums.
During the meeting, Hazelton shared that repairs had been made to the visitors bleachers at the PPHS football field recently, and last year repairs were done to the bleachers on the home side.
He went onto inform the board that “the repairs last year are now in disrepair again.”
Hazelton said, “We are having to make repairs every year and it could be time for the board to consider looking into a more long term solution.”
With the football season’s start right around the corner, the board made the decision to make the short term repairs to the stadium bleachers this year.
The board also decided to begin looking into their options for a more long term solution.
In the superintendent’s closing, he informed the board that again this year, all students at every school in the parish will be able to eat breakfast and lunch for free.