School Board hires manager for remapping

CENTERVILLE -- The St. Mary Parish School Board should probably know by late July what its 2020 Census numbers are, but work already has begun in anticipation of a potential redistricting.
The board agreed Thursday to hire Mike Hefner, chief demographer with Geographic Panning & Demo-graphic Services, to complete the work.
Hefner said the census timeline has been delayed by about four months due to COVID-19, meaning the numbers should be released to President Joe Biden in April, and the parish data can be expected by the end of July.
“It might be a little earlier,” Hefner said.
“It could be a little later. It just really depends if they hold onto that schedule or not.”
Hefner, who did the school system’s last redistricting process in 2010, said that once the numbers are released, he will run them in the mapping he has for the school system.
He then will come to the board with a comparison of the 2010 vs. 2020 data along with a resolution for them to approve regarding whether reapportionment will be necessary.
Once the numbers are plugged in for the current district, if any of them deviate more than 5% from the parish average, the board will have to undergo redistricting. The parish average is calculated by taking the 2020 Census count and dividing it equally by the number of seats on the board.
“Any districts that are high and low, we adjust your boundaries so that the population within those new boundaries are essentially equal” for all the members, Hefner told board members. “Your weight on this board is the same as everyone else.
"No one represents twice as many people and therefore has twice as much influence on the board.”
If redistricting is undertaken, the timeline to complete it and have it approved by the board will be from August until as late as June 2022.
In addition to complying with the voting rights act, other things that are sought to keep intact when drawing up districts are neighborhoods that have been established.
The same goes for rural communities.
“Because that kind of dilutes their voice in that district,” Hefner explained.
They’re not a bigger part of either one of those two districts, and it tends to minimize their voice a little bit. So we try to keep them together to the extent we can.”
Because the School Board and the parish council use precincts in developing the plans, Hefner said he would like to work on both plans at the same time.
He will go to the council to present a proposal for services shortly.
“You don’t have the same plan because y’all configurations are different,” he said.
However, he said working the plans together can minimize the number of precincts that need to be split and save the public money on elections.
While race is an important factor, Hefner said it can’t be the lone factor in determining a district.
“You have to follow the other criteria as well,” he said.
“That being said, the first thing that we’ll be doing when we start working on your plan for 2020 is we’ll build out your minority districts, because that’s where we have the most constraint beside incumbency (requirement).”
After receiving the data and assuming reapportionment is required, he will come to the board with a plan that makes everything work.
Then, it will be broken down by district and changes will be made after input is received until a final plan is developed.
The board approved hiring Hefner for the reapportionment at a cost of $28,500.
However, if the parish council retains his services again for the 2020 reapportinment, the school board’s fee will drop to $25,500, according to Hefner’s proposal.