School Board: Budget, bonds, annual leaves

The St. Landry Parish School Board is to consider tightening the number of days 12-month employees can accumulate.
The board’s Executive Committee voted Monday to send the question to the board at its Aug. 3 meeting.
The change does not affect current employees. If passed, the policy would affect 12-month employees hired on Jan. 1, 2016, and after.
Superintendent Edward Brown said, “I know we are not going to realize an immediate savings as quickly as some other scenarios were pointed, but I think this would be fair to let our existing employees to hold on to the days they have earned and anyone new coming in it would be done on the front end.”
Annual leave would be capped at 25 days compared to 40 days allowed now. Sick leave accumulation would be 10 days.
Current annual leave for 12-month employees is 12 days for employees with up to 36 months of service; 15 days for 37 to 120 months of service; and 18 days for more than 120 months of service.
The proposal would change annual leave to: six days for up to 12 months service; 12 days for 13 to 120 months service; and 15 days for more than 120 months of service.
Current sick leave policy provides 12 days for employees with up to 36 months service; 15 days for 37 to 120 months service; and 18 days for employees with more than 120 months of service.
Under the proposed policy sick leave is 10 days a year.
John Ardoin, school system computer center manager, said the board has focused its cost-savings efforts on the support staff.
“All of the savings that this School Board has been doing the last couple of years has been to the support staff. When we had to layoff, we shutdown all the support staff,” he said.
“The people who make the littlest amount of money that need the most time off for the second job they need to support their family are the ones you are hurting,” he said. Approving the leave policy change would make it more difficult to hire people, he said.
Ardoin said from July 2014 to July 2015 there were 12 people hired to 12-month jobs: 10 janitors; one accountant and one agriculture teacher. If the proposed policy had been in place the system would have saved $33,000, he said.
But that savings was eliminated when the board agreed to switch 11-month principal to 12 months and pay them a total of $58,000 more in salary.
“The savings are so small that it really is going to affect us a lot more than giving up these sick days,” he said.
Board member Donnie Perron said the change is modest and will affect central office staff in addition to support staff.
The executive committee also sent a policy to the full board to establish where the school system will have principals.
The issue arose when two prinicpals were moved to sites — Washington Vocational and Technical School and the St. Landry Alternative Training School — that are recognized as schools by the state. When those principals leave, the jobs will be filled by facilitators.