Student-teacher ratio, maintenance budget to follow 2024-25 budget
Breaux Bridge – The St. Martin Parish School Board approved budget cuts recommended by the central office staff at its meeting this past Wednesday, with two exceptions.
The board’s Finance Committee voted to keep the student-teacher ratio the same as this past school year, and also voted to keep the maintenance budget the same as the 2024-25 school year. The full board approved the committee’s recommendations during its meeting.
The staff had recommended increasing the student- teacher ratio in grades 6-12 to 22-1 for 2025-26 and to 23-1 for 2026-27 school years.
Salaries and benefits for the school system account for more than 85 percent of the budget, CFO Casey Broussard told the Finance Committee.
“When you put that into real numbers, that is the only place you’re really going to materialize savings enough to do what we need to do to continue to move forward fiscally responsibly,” she said.
Many of the cuts that were recommended came from not replacing positions that were vacant or where district-wide supervisors or directors were retiring.
The net savings that would come from the cuts as recommended was estimated at $1.399 million.
“As I said last meeting, the one thing I disagree with is cutting our studentteacher ratio, because that’s our front line,” board member Mark Hebert said.
Broussard noted that the parish is below the state’s required numbers for student-teacher ratio, and even going up by two over the next two years doesn’t put the parish at the state’s recommended level.
The state allows K-3 classes to have 26 students per teacher, and for grades above that the state allows 33 students per teacher.
Other positions also affect the student-teacher ratio, it was explained. Librarians and counselors at high schools are not teachers, but count as teachers when it comes to studentteacher ratio, and each school has a number of “teaching spots” allocated, with librarians and counselors counting against that number.
Hebert suggested looking at other areas to cut such as transportation, or consolidating positions.
“I think once we do that for a complete year, whether it’s through attrition or we abolish positions, maybe we can come closer to the budget that we need,” Hebert said. “But I think we need to keep the studentteacher ratio where it was this past year.”
Board member Steve Fuselier said the parish needs to follow Lafayette Parish’s example and cut central office positions first.
“Because your teachers, principals and facilities need to be well-taken care of,” Fuselier said. “We’re kind of top-heavy right now. That’s where you need to cut.”
Hebert suggested consolidating central office positions in some cases.
Superintendent Frederick Wiltz said the parish school system isn’t as top heavy as some might think because a lot of central office staff hasn’t been replaced when people retire or leave the position.
While he hates to use Lafayette Parish as a reference, he said, the Lafayette Parish Schools media office is greater than the size of the St. Martin central office staff.
Broussard added that the state requirements for the central office staff are not reduced when the student population goes down in the parish.
Board member Edna Johnson said the board needs to ask supervisors what their jobs entail rather than assuming one person could do multiple people’s jobs.
“We as board members don’t know what they’re going through to keep us above where we are,” she said. “Some of you are thinking they don’t do anything, but it’s a lot of work to keep St. Martin Parish looking good. We can say what we want, but if you meet up with them personally, they can explain to you, they might be doing double work to keep us afloat in our parish. If we eliminate (positions), some of them might have to do three or four jobs. They don’t have enough hours to do that.”
Fuselier said he was against cutting the maintenance budget because twice outside contractors were called to take care of an issue at St. Martinville Primary (St. Martin STEAM Academy) and the problem still has not been taken care of. School board maintenance workers could fix those issues, he said, instead of having to pay outside workers to do the job.
Keeping the studentteacher ratio the same reduced the savings by $71,259.
New buses
The Finance Committee also failed to agree to purchase three new air-conditioned regular school buses and two SPED buses.
Maintenance supervisor John Chevalier told the committee that the school system lost two buses from its fleet this past year as they can no longer be used.
Hebert said that the new software the parish is implementing to streamline its bus routes should reduce the number of buses needed, but Wiltz said the system is used to make the routes more efficient and not to reduce the number of buses used for those routes.
Board member Richard Foti said the board should buy the buses because the fleet is already down two buses and there are others in the fleet that won’t last the entire school year.
Hebert said the number of students in car pick-up lines leaves the buses less than full, reducing the need for the number of buses.
Fuselier also argued that the school system should air condition all of its buses instead of buying new air conditioned buses.
“I still think you’re going to need to purchase buses,” Wiltz said. “We had baseball teams last year that were in buses and were stranded at school after they went to an event. One of the buses was absolutely unsafe to drive. We’re going to have to purchase some buses. We can’t continue to run those risks.”
The estimate for three new air-conditioned regular buses and two SPED buses was for $663,341.72.
A substitute motion for purchasing buses without A/C failed.
The vote for the original motion for purchasing airconditioned buses failed on a 5-5 vote.
Finance Committee
The Finance Committee put off making a decision on the School Resource Officers contract as the superintendent still needed to contact other contractors to get costs if those contractors are hired to provide SRO services.
Hebert had asked the school system to look into hiring a private SRO service instead of meeting increased costs from the St. Martin Parish Sheriff’s Office in its proposed contract for the upcoming school year.
Wiltz said that several of the security firms he contacted do not provide SRO services. He did talk to one who could provide those services, but the officers would need training for the positions.
Fuselier said that using the sheriff’s office for SRO services provides some advantages, such as deterring potential school shooters by having a police vehicle at the schools.
The committee also agreed to add $2,400 annually from its sales tax supplements to salaries. That money normally would be given as a pay supplement, but Broussard said that adding it to the salaries benefit teacher retirements without changing the amount of money actually spent. The amount given as supplemental pay would be reduced by the same amount as the pay increase.
Fuselier questioned whether that was the right thing to do because one bad sales tax year could put the school system in a bind by having to pay the increased salary amount.
But Broussard said there is an additional $6,000 per teacher available from the sales tax supplement that ensures the parish can meet that salary increase.
“You can take away from the $6,000 additional sales tax that you’re given and keep your funds that support your salaries,” she said.
