UPDATED: May 9 election postponed to July 25

UPDATED SATURDAY;

The May 9 election, the target date for the proposed St. Mary School Board sales tax election, has been postponed to July 25 because of concerns about the coronavirus, according to the Louisiana Secretary of State's Office.

The School Board had hoped to get the 0.45% sales tax for teacher pay raises on the May 9 ballot so the funding source would be in place in time to hire teachers for the 2020-21 school year.

Original story:

CENTERVILLE — The most prominent opponent of the St. Mary Parish School Board’s proposed sales tax for teacher pay predicted Friday that the tax will appear on the May 9 ballot but will still face opposition.
On Thursday, the School Board passed a resolution that reduces the size of the proposed tax to 0.45% and dedi-cates all the proceeds to salaries and benefits for teachers and other staff members. A technology reserve fund has been dropped from the tax proposal.
The resolution peti-tions the State Bond Commission to approve the May 9 vote. The commission’s Ad Hoc Subcommittee is sched-uled to meet Monday.
State Sen. Bret Allain, R-Franklin, who sits on the commission and had opposed earlier versions of the proposal, said he won’t oppose the latest version and said he believes it will be approved for the May 9 vote.
The changes made Thursday “obviously make me feel better,” Allain said Friday. “All of the tax increase needs to go to teachers.
“I do think they creat-ed their own situation to where there will still be opposition.”
Thursday’s resolution was the third version of the tax proposal passed by the board since De-cember, when it first proposed a May 9 vote on a half-cent sales tax. The anticipated $4.25 million in new revenue would give teachers a $3,000 annual raise and other staff members a $1,500 raise and create a fund for technology enhancements.
That proposal quickly ran into opposition from Parish President David Hanagriff and others who said the timing for a tax increase is wrong as St. Mary’s economy struggles to recover after five long, slumping years.
Allain didn’t like the earlier levying of the tax “in perpetuity.”
The School Board met last week and added a five-year limit on the tax, after which the tax would have to be re-newed by voters. But Allain continued to object, saying a new, smaller tax should be dedicated only to pay raises.
He has also said he would like to see the size of the tax reduced to 0.3%.
On Thursday, School Board member Wayne Deslatte proposed the change to 0.45% and eliminated the $350,000 technology reserve “that’s definitely needed, but he had an issue.”
Deslatte said the smaller tax proposal “is a little more than he suggested but meeting him halfway.”
St. Mary’s current starting teacher pay of $41,000, already among the lowest in the sur-rounding parishes, is in danger of falling behind Lafourche Parish, which has a 0.5% sales tax that would fund a $3,000 pay raise to lift starting teacher salaries to $44,000.
“I think it’s important to keep [the St. Mary proposal] at $44,000 so we can compete,” De-slatte said.
In a guest column in Wednesday’s Daily Review, Allain said the district has already seen an increase of $3 million in property tax revenue since 2017 at a time when enrollment has declined by 900 students in recent years.
At Thursday’s meeting, School Board Chief Financial Officer Alton Perry said he couldn’t find the $3 million property tax bump cited by Allain. The general fund, from which teacher raises would have to be paid, is down nearly $149,000 in property tax revenue, Perry said.
Allain also cited a $1.3 million increase in sales tax revenue since 2016.
“I compute only $26,060 … when comparing reported sales tax for 2018-19 to 2015-16,” Perry said.
About a quarter of a $4 million increase in state Minimum Foundation Program funding cited by Allain from 2018-19 to 2019-20 went to a state-approved $1,000 pay raise for teachers and $500 for support staff members, Perry said. About $550,000 went for recurring “step” increases for teachers, and the rest went to security enhancements designed to prevent access by school visitors to student areas.
Perry said the district has responded to declin-ing enrollment by closing the Shannon and Hernandez elementary schools, eliminating programs such as block scheduling and teacher “teaming,” and eliminating 200 teaching and support staff positions through attrition since 2011.
Board member Roland Verret called the situa-tion leading up to Thursday’s vote “ridiculous.”
“The public will tell us yes or no,” Verret said, “not politicians.”