St. Mary takes $1M cut as student numbers drop

St. Mary Parish Public Schools kicked off the year with a few hundred fewer students compared to last year, which could cost the parish more than $1 million in state funds.

However, there is good news, according to Alton Perry, the district’s chief financial officer. The board started the fiscal year with a $400,000 hike in budgeted sales and use tax collections, which, optimistically, could cover the state loss if the trend continues, he said.

All 66 parishes rely on the state monies to shore up their budgets, relying on the Minimum Foundation Program, which is loosely based on enrollment.

School Superintendent Donald Aguillard said enrollment at St. Mary public schools the second day of class was 8,780 – 193 students shy of the student count this time in 2009. However, Aguillard said the figure will climb once pre-Kindergarten students start school.

School board member Marilyn LaSalle said the parish receives roughly $5,300 per child through the state’s MFP for education.

Despite the $1 million-plus loss, Perry is cautiously optimistic.

“By October or November, we’ll get our totals on how we’re going to fare in regard to ad valorem (property taxes),” he said. We will know what, if anything, we’re up against by then.”

Aguillard said he has asked all principals to get in touch with students who appear to be missing from classes. “Hopefully, this will increase our attendance,” he said. “Otherwise, we’re off to a great start.”

In other fiscal business, the board approved its 2010-11 operating budget, which has a projected $2.42 million deficit. And the budget reflects a decrease in anticipated sales and ad valorem tax collections, as well as a drop in interest earnings for the boards’ investment funds.

Perry said the budget also reflects the drop in MFP monies, in addition to the expense of the summer remediation program.

“Yet, the St. Mary Parish School Board continues to be in a strong financial position,” he said, noting the district has a projected balance of $14 million. Of that figure, $1.5 million is in reserved funds; $12.4 million in designated funds; and $62,758 in unreserved, undesignated funds, he said.

The 2010-11 fiscal year budget calls for roughly $101 million in revenues and $109.9 million in expenditures.

In other business, Aguillard said fourth grade summer school results indicate that 92 percent of students who failed last year earned passing marks. They were elevated to the fifth grade at the outset of the school year.

Also, 78 percent of eighth graders who failed last school year earned passing marks and were promoted to high school at the start of school.

The parish as a whole earned a composite score of 91.5 percent, Aguillard said. “And to think, in 2004 we were considered to be in the bottom third of the state’s public schools.

“With a little push this year, my staff and I believe we are poised to bring that score up by two, maybe three points,” he continued. “This will put St. Mary in the top 23 percent of the state’s public schools. Our motto this year is, ‘Every teacher, every child, every day.'”