The budget impact of students leaving the Lincoln school system and migrating to the charter New Living Word Ministries school and others appears not as great as originally feared, it was revealed at last night’s meeting of the Lincoln Parish School Board (LPSB).
The “loss” due to students leaving the system will be about $725 thousand, according to Superintendent Danny Bell. Whenever a student transfers to an alternative school, both local and state funding also “moves” with the student.
When NLW originally announced plans to expand their operation, with a potential of several hundred students leaving the Lincoln School District, the financial impact would have been significant.
Said Bell, “Early on in the report, when we were looking at 419 vouchers or so, we were thinking that would be about $2.3 million.”
Bell said that only about 79 students participated in the alternative programs, and that some may eventually return to the Lincoln system.
For the 2012 – 2013 budget, a hit of about $1 million was assumed in the calculations.
That good news was tempered just a little bit by the news that sales tax collections were down about 4 1/2% year-to-date, compared to last year’s revenues.
See the report.
As for fund balances, compare the 08/30/12 report with the 7/31/12 and 8/30/11 reports.
In other action the board approved solicitation of bids for five new buses.
See the memo.
10/03/2012 at 10:11 pm |
I predicted this in the beginning. I predict now that the vouchers claimed will be even lower in future. Lincoln parish overall has good public schools. If there are schools that are voucher eligible, we need to get that corrected very soon; then no more voucher troubles.
How about: if a parent wants to consider moving a child from a “failing” school, the School Board give them the option of moving that child to a non-failing school in the parish system, for, say, one year, to see how it goes. If the federal judge doesn’t like it, tell him him to butt out; education is a local-state issue, and the feds have not helped, rather hurt.
10/04/2012 at 10:25 am |
I like your post! It’s time we take our government back to the local level and quit following like sheep every decree handed down from D.C.