School workers to get $3.6M in supplements

Breaux Bridge – School board members last week approved salary supplemental pay for system employees that will cost the general fund and sales tax funds about $3,600,000 during fiscal year 2016-17.
The action came after the board’s finance committee reviewed the history of the parish’s two one-cent sales taxes and the general fund balance that remained at the end of the 2015-16 fiscal year.
Board members were presented with two options for paying salary supplements, the first would have allocated $2,000 for all professional employees and $1,430 for all paraprofessionals, to be paid in November and May 2017. The price tag on this option, including retirement benefits, came to $2.4 million, all to be paid with sales tax revenues.
The second option, which received unanimous approval, upped the ante to $2,850 for professionals and $2,280 for paraprofessionals.
This will cost the system $3.6 million, with the additional $1.2 million to be taken from the general fund’s 2015-16 surplus.
The supplements will be spread over four months, this November and in January, March and May of 2017.
Professionals will get $1,000 in November, $425 in January and March, and $1,000 in May.
Paraprofessionals will receive $715 in November and May, and $425 in January and March.
Committee members also reviewed a summary of collections and expenditures in the two sales tax funds over a three-year budget span.
Total collections dropped from $17.4 million in FY 2014-15 to $14.4 million in FY 2015-16. The 2016-17 budget projects a slight increase in revenue from the two taxes, up to $14,727,000.
As a result of the drop in income last year, expenses exceeded revenues by more than $2.5 million and the sales tax fund balance fell from $8 million to $5.5 million.
The 2016-17 budget projects that surplus will likely slip to $5.1 million by June 30, 2017.