A constant in Terrebonne amid the questions

The Terrebonne Parish School Board voted to extend for two years Superintendent Philip Martin’s contract, authorizing the school chief’s new deal ahead of a year in which the system will likely seek more tax revenue while board members run re-election campaigns.

Martin’s contract is now scheduled to expire Dec. 31, 2016, which will be the midpoint of the next school board’s term. Martin’s salary and benefits will remain the same, and the terms of his contract were not amended.

His renewal was finalized at a time when the district’s student- and teacher-performance scores rank among state leaders and when system leaders claim problems at deteriorating and over-crowded schools can’t be rectified without an infusion of tax revenue. Low teacher pay compared to state averages has been cited as a reason why the system now has roughly 60 teaching vacancies.

And the state’s pending application of national Common Core standards – which set guidelines for what students should know at the end of each grade level – means Terrebonne will continue transitioning to that curriculum over the next couple of years.

“We are at the most critical point as a school system that I’ve seen,” board member L.P. Bordelon III said. “I think we need continuous leadership.”

Voters overwhelmingly shot down a district proposal to raise property taxes by 31 mills in May. The school board has since formed a task force with the Houma-Terrebonne Chamber of Commerce, which campaigned against the tax increase. That group, comprised of community volunteers and business and educational leaders, is expected to make recommendations to the school board by the end of the month as to how it should fix problems attributed to sub-par revenue streams.

Jennifer Armand, chairwoman of the chamber’s board of directors, said the task force has concluded its public-meetings phase and will work throughout the next month to draft a list of recommendations for the school board.

“It is my hope that sometime in January, we’ll have that report released,” Armand said. “It appeared that more of the task force members were leaning toward a possible sales tax to help fund raise teacher salaries to state average or above and hiring additional teachers so we can lower that student-teacher ratio and develop more effective classrooms.”

Aiming to keep all options on the table, the Terrebonne School Board announced that it will consider a resolution Jan. 14, 2014 that would declare an intention to go before the voters to either issue bonds or raise either property- or sales-tax rates sometime next year.

The board does not have to specify how much or what type of tax increase it would seek and making the declaration does not guarantee the board will pose a referendum, but it is necessary as a placeholder should the board move forward with a tax plan in 2014, Martin said.

Martin’s extension was approved via a 7-2 vote, with members Brenda Leroux Babin and Debi Benoit in opposition. Both said their votes against had nothing to do with their relationship with the superintendent.

Extending Martin’s contract now pre-emptively weakens the 2015-19 school board, Babin said.

“State laws, they are taking more and more power away from the board. The one power the board still has is the hiring of the superintendent,” Babin said. “I don’t want to take that away from the next board that comes into existence in 2015, whether it be the same board members that are up here or whether it be an entirely new board.”

Benoit said she would prefer to wait until after the board receives the task force’s recommendations. That the tax proposal failed by a 52-percent margin shows a lack of public trust in the system’s leaders, she reasoned.

“I don’t think the timing is right for us to consider an extension,” Benoit said. “What I’d like to suggest is that we do extend the contract, but we do that after we’ve settled the issue of taxes, which could be sometime this summer.”

Babin and Benoit voted against Martin’s extension last time it came up for renewal, less than one month after they first took office in 2011. Both said they hadn’t been afforded enough time to work with the superintendent prior to the vote.

Board attorney Berwick Duval said Martin’s contract already contains performance objectives, so a new contract can adhere to the same terms while remaining compliant with the state law.

Enacted legislation under challenge in the appellate court system would require enhanced objectives for districts that receive a grade of C or lower from the state; Terrebonne is at a B, meaning the district is not mandated to include the stricter objectives in Martin’s contract, even if the law is upheld, Duval said.

“The school board is the decision-maker as to which specific performance objectives it wants in the contract,” Duval said.

The school board’s term ends Dec. 31, 2014, which is the same day Martin’s contract was scheduled to expire. By extending him two years into the next term, the board ensures “continuity” and “stability” through the election cycle, board member Don Duplantis said.

Martin’s 2013 salary package was $144,957, which included a $6,500 car allowance. He has not received a salary increase as Terrebonne’s superintendent.

Board President Roger “Dale” DeHart commenced the process of extending the contract last month. He announced his intentions at a regular board meeting in November and said the system’s attorney was reviewing all applicable laws. The board’s executive committee unanimously recommended the new contract at its last meeting.

“To me, the past performance warranted my discussion with the superintendent and bringing it to the (executive) committee,” DeHart said.