Financial news gets worse for parish’s public schools

The financial news is not getting any better for the Vermilion Parish School Board.
Sales tax collection and oil and gas revenue and sales tax collection continue to fall for the public school system.
The school system is projected to be $2.7 million short from a year ago due to the decline in oil and gas revenue and sales tax collection.

Oil and gas revenue

With the fiscal year coming to a close in June, the school board is projected to collect around $3.1 million for the year from oil and gas revenue located on 16th Section Land. That is projected to be $1.8 million short from a year ago.
The $3.1 million collected in 2016 will be the least amount collected since the 2009-2010 year when only $2.6 million was collected.
The reasons for the downturn are because of the cheaper price of oil and gas prices and there is little, if any, new drilling on 16 Section Land.
For the last five years the school board has collected an average of $4.8 million a year from oil and gas revenue. The school board does not budget oil and gas revenue but it does use it to pay unexpected bills.

Sales tax collection

The news is not positive for sales tax collection for the public school system.
After 11 months, the school system is down 14.4 percent in sales tax collection or about a $900,000 drop from a year ago.
In sales tax collection, the school board collected $6.6 million. Last year the collection was just over $7 million.