LINCOLN PARISH SCHOOL BOARD
Ruston, Louisiana
REGULAR SESSION
Tuesday, April 9, 2024 12:00 p.m.
The Lincoln Parish School Board met in Regular Session on Tuesday, April 9, 2024, at 12:00 p.m. at Simsboro School, #1 Tiger Drive, Simsboro, Louisiana. Members present were Ms. Debbie Abrahm, Mr. Clark Canterbury, Ms. Donna Doss, Mr. David Ferguson, Mr. Danny Hancock, Mr. George Mack, Jr., Mr. Joe Mitcham, Mr. Gregg Phillips, Mr. Hunter Smith, and Dr. Danielle Williams.
Mr. Otha Ander and Ms. Lynda Henderson were absent.
President Phillips called the meeting to order and welcomed the guests that were present. Ms. Doss gave the invocation and Mr. Mack led in the Pledge of Allegiance to the American flag.
Upon a motion by Mr. Mitcham, seconded by Ms. Doss, the Board unanimously voted to adopt the agenda as presented.
Upon a motion by Mr. Hancock, seconded by Ms. Abrahm, the Board voted 9-1 to approve the minutes of the Regular Session held on March 5, 2024.
Simsboro School Principal Lacey Holcomb welcomed everyone and expressed that SHS was very excited to host this month’s board meeting.
She added that the passing of the 2023 bond issue allows for the expansion of new classrooms, a science lab, an Ag building, and a PreK playground. In addition, much needed renovations will be made to the main gym and baseball and softball fields. All of these projects will provide students with additional academic opportunities that will better prepare them for the future.
The school’s mission statement is “Building a better tomorrow…one student at a time.” Ms. Holcomb said this is a mission that they strive for every day, but it would not be possible without the amazing faculty and staff at Simsboro, the support of the community, district leaders, and school board members.
Brandon Sutherland, Communications Coordinator, recognized Dubach Principal Tiffany Curry as a state Principal of the Year Semi-Finalist for 2024. He said that the task of bragging on Ms. Curry was an easy one. She works extremely hard at her school and the results are evident when you walk in the door of Dubach School. From test scores to parent engagement, she does a little of everything to make her school and community better.
Ms. Doss added a big thank you to Ms. Curry and said this was a well-deserved honor. Mr. Phillips added his congratulations on behalf of the Board and thanked her for all she does.
Next Mr. Sutherland recognized the Ruston High School Bearcat Nation Network for winning the LSBA 2024 Video Contest. He said that this group of students, along with their teacher, Mr. Nick Brown, work hard behind the scenes at athletic events and many other school functions in the parish documenting and sharing these events with the public. The Louisiana School Board Association held a video contest this year and challenged districts across the state to create videos that showed their community involvement in athletics. RHS Bearcat Nation Network took that challenge head on and submitted an outstanding video recognized by LSBA as the winner of a $1,000 prize. Dr. Williams was able to accept this award on their behalf at the recent LSBA Annual Convention in Baton Rouge.
Mr. Smith said that he wanted to commend Mr. Brown and his group of students. He said this has been an incredible thing to watch evolve at RHS and across the district. It has been amazing to hear from people across the world who have been able to watch local high school events and this has revolutionized the way RHS athletics will be viewed for many years to come. Mr. Brown added that over 1.2 million people have watched Bearcat sports since this started and he appreciates all the support from the school board for allowing them to have the opportunity.
Finance Committee Chairman George Mack, Jr. reported that the committee met on Wednesday, April 3, 2024, at 11:00 a.m. to discuss two items for consideration. The committee approved these items to be presented to the Board today.
The first item was to approve 2024 Mid-Year Health Plan Benefit Changes and Mr. Mack asked Chief Financial Officer Juanita Duke to offer a recap of the recommended changes. She said there were three changes to consider.
The first, for Pharmacy Benefits, is to implement the SaveOn Savings Program for specialty drugs. This is a copay assistance program that will target prescriptions for certain specialty drugs to direct patients to take advantage of available manufacturer’s copay assistance at the point of sale to lower their out-of-pocket costs and also lower the PPO health plan’s cost for participating specialty drugs.
PPO Plan Benefits is the next item. This would amend chiropractic benefits to align with the current deductible and co-insurance structure of similar rehabilitation and physician benefits in the plan.
An Employee Wellness program is the last item. LPSB would engage with Ochsner Health for Biometric Health Screenings for employees in 2024. All screenings are voluntary and there is no cost to employees. Non-Health Plan employees who would like to participate can do so for a fee of $55. These screenings would be held on site at every school.
Chairperson Mack made the recommendation from the Finance Committee for approval. The Board unanimously voted to approve the mid-year 2024 PPO health plan changes approved by the Finance Committee.
The next item from the committee was the Cooperative Endeavor Agreement with the Lincoln Parish Sheriff’s Office regarding School Resource Officers. Mr. Mack yielded the floor to Superintendent Ricky Durrett who said that in October of 2020 the Lincoln Parish School Board and the Lincoln Parish Sheriff’s Office had an agreement to provide School Resource Officers at our schools. At that time, the voters of Lincoln Parish approved a ½-cent sales tax to help fund SROs at each school. LPSB will increase the amount contributed for the extra officers to $565,000 per year, which will be paid for 10 months at $56,500 per month beginning each year in August and ending in May. This amount is approximately 50% of what it costs for those SRO officers. The officers also cover athletic events and other events for schools for no additional cost to LPSB.
The recommendation that the LPSB authorize the Superintendent to sign a Cooperative Endeavor Agreement with the Lincoln Parish Sheriff’s Office regarding School Resource Officers in all Lincoln Parish Schools was unanimously approved.
Juanita Duke, Chief Financial Officer, announced that the audit of our fiscal year 2022-2023 was complete. She introduced Auditor in Charge Ms. Amy Tynes of Allen, Green & Williamson. Ms. Tynes stated that overall this was a good report, with auditors issuing an unmodified opinion in their report, which is the best opinion we can receive.
Ms. Tynes presented the audit report of the School Board’s financial statement for the year ending June 30, 2023. She called attention to two reports, the Annual Comprehensive Financial Report and the Single Audit Report, and briefly went over the results of these audit reports.
In the Annual Comprehensive Financial Report, the auditor issued a clean opinion, or an unmodified audit opinion. This is the best opinion possible, which means that the Board’s financial condition, position, and operations were fairly presented in the financial statements without any modifications. Ms. Tynes reviewed the government-wide results, which includes all funds of the School Board, including all capital assets, debt, and other liabilities. She pointed out that the net position of the agency is a deficit of $89 million. This deficit is better than the previous year, and she said that the “big ticket” items that cause this deficit are the School Board’s long-term liabilities for other post-employment benefits – for current and future retiree insurance benefits ($107 million) - and its share of the pension liabilities of state retirement systems – for current and future retirees ($76 million).
She then presented the General Fund and pointed out that the General Fund is the only place in the report to find the amount of funds that are not restricted. For individual funds, she reported the General Fund had an unassigned ending fund balance as of June 30, 2023 of $16.7 million, representing approximately three months of day-to-day expenses. General Fund revenue for FY 2023 was $62.3 million and that is an increase of about $2.3 million for the 2023 fiscal year, due to increased MFP and higher interest earnings. The total expenses were $61.2 million, an increase of approximately $3.6 million. After net transfers in and out of $4.2 million, the General Fund actually had an increase in fund balance of $5.3 million.
Ms. Tynes went on to explain that the 2000 Ad Valorem Tax had revenues of $4.5 million for 2023. This is also an increase of about $300,000 over last year, largely due to interest as well. Total expenses were $2 million, and after transfers out of $1.1 million, the increase in fund balance was $1.3 million.
She said that the Title I funds are cost reimbursement funds and do not have a fund balance. The total revenue received and the total expenses with transfers were right at $5.2 million. All other Nonmajor Governmental Funds – that includes special revenue funds (grants and dedicated taxes), debt service funds (dedicated for payment of debt), and capital project funds (set aside for capital improvements) - had an overall increase of $3.5 million with a combined ending fund balance of $32.8 million.
She reported the Internal Service Funds for self-insured Group Health Insurance and Workers’ Compensation increased $228,000 resulting in a combined ending net position of $3.7 million.
Next, Ms. Tynes recapped the Single Audit Report on federal program funds. The district received a total of approximately $18.9 million federal dollars in fiscal year 2023. The financial statement audit includes any testing of financial transactions, testing of internal controls, and testing of state compliance of major federal programs. An unmodified opinion was issued with no deficiencies related to internal controls and testing of compliance for the Education Stabilization Funds and Special Education Cluster. A qualified opinion was issued related to two findings for Child Nutrition (with one noted as a material weakness). A third finding is the result of the late submission of the financial audit to the Legislative Auditors. The December 31, 2023 submission deadline was not met, however an extension was requested and granted due to additional time school board staff needed to close accounts and a delay in receiving OPEB Liability report from actuary, but the late filing is still required to be reported as a finding.
Ms. Tynes recapped the two findings in the Child Nutrition Program. The finding for internal controls and compliance over financial reporting was due to lack of internal control over submission of meal reimbursement reports and no oversight over the keyed in submissions that resulted in lower meal reimbursements received from the state. The second finding for internal control over procurement, suspension and debarment of vendors from receiving federal funds is the result of inadequate documentation retained to show that this was being checked in all instances during the 2023 fiscal year, even though no vendors were found to be suspended.
Ms. Tynes concluded her report and reiterated to board members that if they have any additional questions, to please reach out to her and she would be happy to discuss further.
Facilitator of Federal Programs Dr. Sheila Nugent asked the Board to grant permission to advertise for bids for printing/binding services. She said that Federal Uniform Grant Guidance prescribes specific policies and procedures for the procurement of printing, binding, related supplies, and related services. State regulations require that LEAs must invite bids from competitive vendors for printing and binding services that total $60,000 or more within a fiscal year. By inviting bids, LEAs can ensure that the most economical and efficient vendor is used.
Our current bid contract with Davis Printing ends on April 30, 2024, so we will need to issue a new Invitation to Bid to run through June 30, 2025.
Upon a motion by Ms. Doss, seconded by Mr. Hancock, the Board unanimously voted to grant the Superintendent permission to invite bids for printing and binding of K-12 instructional resources, flyers, and forms, and that the Board grants the Superintendent permission to accept the lowest bid meeting specifications as outlined on the Invitation to Bid.
The following personnel items were shared by Dr. Doris Lewis, Director of Human Resources:
1. Retirement of the following:
Lori Varner, science teacher at Choudrant High School, effective May 25, 2024;
Jaimee Hudson, Assistant Principal of Curriculum at Ruston High School, effective June 24, 2024;
Kimberly Dietrich, certified occupational therapy assistant in Special Education, effective February 26, 2024; and
Jeanie Rowland, special education adaptive PE teacher in Special Education, effective May 25, 2024.
3. Resignation of the following, effective May 25, 2024, unless otherwise noted:
Stephanie Bairin, French Immersion teacher at Glen View Elementary;
Camille Revillet, French Immersion teacher at Ruston Elementary;
MacKenzie Davidson, special education teacher at Ruston Elementary;
Amanda Bonner, elementary teacher at Simsboro School; and
Aaron Norris, special education teacher at Simsboro School, effective March 30, 2024.
4. Recommendation of the following:
Kendal Singh, speech therapist at Glen View Elementary effective March 14, 2024, replacing Misty Falting who resigned.
Juanita Duke, Chief Financial Officer, reported March 2024 sales tax collections were down 6.4% compared to the same month last year. Overall, on a cash basis, collections are .75 of a percent lower than this time last year. If we remove the refund from July, collections would actually be about 2% higher through the same period last year.
In her financial update for February, Ms. Duke reported total General Funds revenue collected to date is $47.7 million, with total revenue overall reported of $77.8 million. This is approximately $10.7 million over last month’s revenue report, mostly due to collections of annual Ad Valorem taxes this month. Year-to-date expenditures in General Funds are $35.1 million, total expenditures in Special Revenue Funds to date are $21.3 million, for total expenditures of $56.5 million. She reported total fund balance of all funds at $65.9 million. The General Fund has $40.3 million of this balance, with $28.7 million (or 46.9%) being undesignated at this time.
Ms. Duke reported on the Health Insurance Fund for February, stating that total plan collections remained about the same as they were year-to-date last year at $2.4 million. Total expenses for the plan year to date is $2.7 million, which is an increase of $436,000 in the first two months of the plan year, compared to expenses in the same period last year of $2.3 million. She reported a decrease in plan net assets of $300,000 for the plan year.
In the Enrollment Report, Mr. Durrett said that attendance in all schools was above 90%, with A.E. Phillips above 96% and Howard School at 100%.
In a Report of the Superintendent, Mr. Durrett said:
1. Testing is in full swing at all schools and should finish up by mid-May. A great deal goes into testing and Dr. Williams-Hearne does a great job. We appreciate all that she does, as well as all of the testing coordinators at every school.
2. Reminder that the bond election for the Choudrant School District and the Ruston School District is on April 27. Early voting is April 13 – 20.
3. The Simsboro bond passed last year and construction is scheduled to begin at the end of May and should be completed for the beginning of the school year in August of 2025. We are looking forward to getting that started.
After comments from board members, upon a motion by Mr. Mitcham, seconded by Ms. Abrahm, the meeting adjourned at 12:59 p.m.
_______________________________ _______________________________
Ricky Durrett, Secretary Gregg Phillips, President