Sales tax is back on School Board agenda

For the second time this month, the St. Mary Parish School Board’s proposed half-cent sales tax appears on a meeting agenda for possible changes.
The agenda for the 5 p.m. Thursday meeting at the Central Office Complex in Centerville includes discussion of “potential amendments to the previously adopted resolution ordering and calling an election in which the Parish School Board of the Parish of St. Mary, State of Louisiana authorized the levy of a ½% sales and use tax and take appropriate action.”
The board passed a resolution in December calling for a May 9 election on the new half-cent tax. It would raise about $4.25 million per year that would pay for a $3,000 a year raise for teachers and a $1,500 raise for noncertified staff members, as well as technology upgrades.
But opposition surfaced almost immediately, most of it centered on the possible negative impact on St. Mary Parish’s sluggish economy.
The State Bond Commission, which must approve the ballot measure, deferred action last month. State Sen. Bret Allain, R-Franklin, sits on the commission. He told the St. Mary Industrial Group that he objected to the lack of a sunset provision in the board’s resolution.
The School Board met in special session March 3 and added a five-year term to the ballot proposition. But Allain, in a guest column published Wednesday in The Daily Review, wrote that the board would do better with a 0.3% tax directed solely toward teacher pay raises.
School Board members say the district needs the raises to make it competitive with other nearby districts, including Lafourche, for which a half-cent, five-year sales tax proposition was approved for May 9 at the same Bond Commission meeting at which St. Mary’s proposal was deferred.
Also Thursday:
—The School Board will discuss its evaluation of Superintendent Teresa Bagwell in closed session.
Bagwell was appointed in March 2019 to succeed Leonard Armato, who retired.
Bagwell, who had served as St. Mary’s assistant superintendent, started April 1 with a base pay of $130,000 per year on a two-year contract.
—The board will recognize the district’s Students, Teachers and Principals of the Year.
—The board will go into closed session to talk about Boudreaux et al vs. St. Mary Board of Education, the half-century-old school desegregation lawsuit.
Although St. Mary ended its system of separate public schools not long after the lawsuit was filed in 1965, the case never reached final resolution with a declaration of “unitary status,” which lifts direct court supervision. People close to the case say that the case is back in court as part of an effort to resolve longstanding school desegregation cases.
A timeline submitted by parties in the lawsuit indicates work toward a unitary status ruling will last at least until October.
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