Vermilion Parish School Board will dip into reserve to help pay off projected shortfall

School board members met Monday and agreed to take out $2.3 million from the reserves to help pay for a projected shortfall of $2.3 million at the end of the school year.
Superintendent Jerome Puyau Puyau said no one will be getting pink slips because the school district anticipated the shortfall. The parish saved up to $19 million in its reserve over a two year period.
School Board member Anthony Fontana said the reason for the shortfall is not because of poor spending habits by the school board.
“The $2.3 million is not because we have mismanaged money or mismanaged the operation of the school board system,” Fontana explained. “The majority of the $2.3 million deficit were state action. The state department of education has removed oil and gas MFP funding, coupled with Obama Care, and the loss of $600,000 from Charter Schools. If we had all that money back, we would not have a $2.3 million deficit.”
The shortfall is because the district collected an excess of oil and gas revenue on 16 Section Land two years ago. It punishes the district two years later by withholding MFP funding.
Each district receives a different dollar amount from the MFP. After all of the calculations are compiled the Vermilion Parish School Board receives $5,295 to educate each child.
It is now two years later, and the district is feeling the MFP with-holdings this year, coupled with the increase in insurance costs and decrease in $1.3 million in oil and gas revenue. The state also docked the district another $600,000 of MFP funding because students went to charter schools outside of Vermilion Parish. The superintendent is still not sure what students left for charter schools.
Superintendent Puyau explained that two years ago when the district collected $7 million from oil and gas revenue, the state said Vermilion’s District had a wealthy year and it wanted its share.
“Because we had such a banner year, not only did they (state) want their portion, it made us a rich district that year,” Puyau said. “The richer you are, the less MFP funding you get. They penalized not only $1.2 million but an additional $600,000 for being a rich parish. You add those monies up, coupled with the charter school loss, and this is not because of mismanagement or board decisions. It is because of the MFP formula.”