The Lincoln Parish School District has cut about thirty teaching positions throughout the system due to budget constraints, Business Manager George Murphy told the Lincoln Parish School Board (LPSB) at last night’s meeting.
Said Murphy, “Through attrition, we’ve eliminated thirty certificated positions.”
Over the past two years, total overall payroll at the district has decreased by about 90 positions, Murphy said. About 42 were teaching positions, and about 48 were staff positions.
No personnel were laid off in the cuts, however. The reductions were accomplished by not replacing personnel who retired or resigned.
The 7/1/12-6/30/13 budget adopted at last night’s meeting plans for revenues of about $66.6 million and expenditures of about $67.9 million. The 7/1/11-6/30/12 budget had revised actual revenues of about $69.0 million and expenditures of about $70.0 million.
This represents an expected decrease in revenues of about $2.4 million (3 1/2%) and an expected decrease in expenditures of about $2.1 million (3%).
The reduced budget is a result of cutback in state Minimum Foundation Program (MFP) funding and diversion of money to the state’s voucher program.
We will have additional reporting later today on other matters from the meeting.
09/05/2012 at 6:01 am |
Yet they have money to build Ruston High School a new fieldhouse!
09/05/2012 at 8:24 am |
Hey Angry-Taxpayer…do you know how much of the new fieldhouse was funded through the School Board? It is my understanding that the majority of funding came from private donations.
09/05/2012 at 9:23 am |
The field house was constructed using money that was borrowed. The debt will be paid back by the taxpayers of Lincoln Parish.
http://lincolnparishnewsonline.wordpress.com/2011/04/04/lincoln-parish-school-board-tuesday-night-8/
“In New Business, a resolution to incur $3.1 million in debt and issuance of the corresponding bonds will be considered. This is money for construction of the RHS field house.”
09/05/2012 at 2:59 pm |
According to Walter Abbott, apparently it’s $3.1 million! Does that answer you’re question Cotton?
09/05/2012 at 4:25 pm |
I humbly stand corrected!
09/05/2012 at 8:20 pm |
A high school in a suburb of Dallas has a new, $60 million football stadium. A high school in Carthage, TX, has supposedly the largest super-scoreboard in high school footballdom. Longview sewars their si bigger and that Carthage’s new one is “measured wrong”.
Have people lost their minds?
Answer apparently is…Yes.
09/05/2012 at 8:20 pm |
That’s “swears”, although sewers is not far off the mark…
09/05/2012 at 10:30 pm |
It’s hard to complain when government gets smaller, even the school system.
09/06/2012 at 5:47 am |
We TEA Party conservatives do wish to see government at all levels shrink back to manageable levels, but we also wish this process to be responsible. The episode depicted in this article is not a case of the LPSB getting smaller through staff reductions, but is rather a case of shifting fiscal resources from the apparently lower priority of teachers to the apparently higher priority of building a new fieldhouse for the Ruston High football team. Government at all levels constantly whines about not having enough resources and demands ever higher tax rates to feed its spending, but it always manages to find the money for the projects upon which those in power place the highest priority. In this case, football is revealed to be a higher priority than teachers in the LP school system. As a TEA Party conservative, I would like to see staff reductions and reductions in capital spending for things like football stadiums and fieldhouses. What are we taxpayers supposed to think when the powers that be come around whining about the poor state of our classrooms when they can afford to build new football facilities? After all, football is supposed to be an extracurricular activity, not the primary purpose of the school system. So yes, in cases such as this, it is easy to complain about government getting smaller precisely because this is not such a case, but is being falsely portrayed in the media narrative as such. LPNO reveals the real motivation behind such craven shenanigans.
09/06/2012 at 9:55 am |
There is a private sector solution to education funding. School spirit pays has devised a way for business owners to help contribute to schools without “losing” any money. Go to http://www.wepayourway.org to find out how.