UPDATED: Lawrence Guillory picked to be interim School Board member

CENTERVILLE — The St. Mary Parish School Board will have a new member next month.
The board voted Thursday night to appoint Lawrence Guillory to fill the District VII seat left vacant by the resignation of Murphy Pontiff, which was announced at the September meeting.
Also Thursday, a lower than expected renewal offer led School Board members to renew its employee health insurance coverage with Blue Cross Blue Shield of Louisiana. And members learned that public school enrollment continues to trend downward.
Guillory will serve on an interim basis until a special election March 29. If a runoff is necessary, it will be May 3.
Guillory was one of seven applicants for the interim post. The others were former Parish President David Hanagriff, who withdrew from consideration; former Parish Council member Peter Soprano; Almetra Franklin; Carla Broussard-Pellerin; Craig Pellerin; and Glenn Pellerin.
An initial vote narrowed the field to Guillory and Glenn Pellerin. Guillory was chosen by a 7-3 runoff vote.
Guillory is a married father of two who lives in Centerville and works in the energy industry.
“I think it’s important to have people on the board who have safety and quality in mind,” Guillory said outside the meeting room.
Guillory will take the oath of office at the next regular second-Thursday School Board meeting Nov. 14.
He becomes the fourth interim appointment to the board since October 2021, two because of the deaths of board members and two due to resignations. The 11-member board, which not long ago was dominated by members who had held seats for decades, now has only two members who have served more than two four-year terms: Marilyn LaSalle and Ginger Griffin, both of Patterson.
Insurance
A renewal offer with an increase of only 2.4% for the coming year persuaded the board to stick with Blue Cross Blue Shield of Louisiana for health coverage of its employees.
Insurance consultant James Perez told the board that he’d expected a renewal offer with a premium hike of 7%.
Group insurance coverage has been a source of red warning flags in recent years. In the 2019-21 period, when the coverage was with UHC, the ratio of claims to premium payments was about 111% in two years and 143% in the third.
After switching to Blue Cross, the ratios were 80% in 2022 and 97% in 2023.
Through the first nine months of 2024, the losses have been equal to about 98% of premiums.
Perez has asked the board in recent years to consider switching to a self-funded system, in which the board would pay claims from a reserve fund and hire an insurer to administer the plan. A self-funded plan would give the board flexibility in setting a benefit structure.
The gold coin in a self-funded plan would be that the plan would receive $750,000-$1.1 million in prescription drug rebates that now go to Blue Shield and Blue Cross.
The relatively low renewal offer from Blue Cross led to quick board approval for another year of conventional coverage.
Enrollment
St. Mary Parish public school enrollment as of Oct. 1 was 7,221, Superintendent Dr. Buffy Fegenbush told the board.
That’s down by 280 students from last year and 740 from 2021’s enrollment, Fegenbush said.