School Board sets meeting to talk about sales tax

By JACLYN BREAUX
jbreaux
@daily-review.com
CENTERVILLE — The St. Mary Parish School Board has called a public meeting for next month to talk about the possibility of calling an election on a 0.5% sales tax.
The board President announced the event Thursday. The meeting would be at 5 p.m. Dec. 12 at the Central Office Complex in Centerville.
Like other local governments, the School Board has seen tax collections dip since energy prices turned sharply downward in fall 2014.
Also Thursday, the St. Mary School Board voted to seek removal as a member of the initial negotiating class from a lawsuit against the manufacturer of a drug linked to the opioid crisis. The reason why the board wants to be removed wasn’t discussed in public.
According to the Justia site for dockets and filings, on Oct. 26, 2018, the School Board filed with the U.S. District Court for the Middle District of Louisiana to join into litigation referred to as The County of Summit, Ohio, et al., v. Purdue Pharma L.P. et al.
After a closed-door session Thursday, the School Board’s legal adviser, Eric Duplantis, requested “a motion for the president of the board or the superintendent to sign an exclusion request form from the court to remove St. Mary Parish School Board from the initial negotiation class. This is being done at the recommendation of our attorneys.”
The motion passed.
Several local governments signed on to litigation against drug manufacturers based on losses related to a growing number of overdoses and deaths linked to opioids. Depending on the government involved, those potential damages were said to include lost employee time, turnover, health care expenses, and the cost of police investigations.
In September, the parties in the Summit, Ohio, v. Purdue class action suit announced a tentative settlement involving 23 states and 2,000 local governments. Purdue developed the powerful pain-killer Oxycontin.
In other action:
—The board heard from James Perez regarding health insurances offered to School Board employees. Motions carried approving group voluntary dental and vision plan renewals for the year.
Perez also presented the quarterly Group Health Insurance Premium to Claims Summary to the board members.
The report showed the premium to claims summary and put the loss ratio, with the expense adjustment added, at 110.01% for the year.
That means more is being paid in claims than is collected in premiums. This could cause costs to the School Bboard or employees to rise if they want to keep the health care plan since the insurance company is paying more in claims than it is collecting in premiums.
“The good news is that our 2020 renewal is settled, but it is concerning that claims have not stabilized,” Perez said.
“We will have to keep a close eye on this and strategize very early next year, take action beginning in January considering other options. United Healthcare may not be our long-term option. There may be enough of a difference in the discounts, even though they claim to be competitive with Blue Cross.”
—Brad Weise of St. Mary Parish Appraisals was asked to establish a market value of vacant land located on Glenwood Drive next to Wyandotte School. The appraisal was presented to the board at the meeting by Weise.
“We received an appraisal on a small section of property located by Wyandotte Elementary. The appraisal price is $111,100,” Weise said.
This property is located next to Lapco Inc. in Wyandotte and the company has shown interest in purchasing the property.
The board made a motion to declare the property as surplus and put the property for sale at the assessed value. The motion was passed.