Welcome to the Best of New Orleans! News Feature 08 03 04

Compare Hotel Rates for New Orleans and Save!
Date of Arrival

Nights

Rooms

Adults


Other Cities

NEWS FEATURE

08 03 04

Respond to
this Story

Help Wanted, Maybe

Relationships between the School Board, the Superintendent and the City continue to evolve.

By Lili LeGardeur

In an unusual show of cooperation, the six members of the Orleans Parish School Board in attendance at their scheduled meeting July 26 voted unanimously to accept the $565 million budget presented by Superintendent Anthony Amato. District 4 member Ellenese Brooks-Simms was the only member absent from the vote. Much discussion will follow before the detailed budget is filed by the state deadline of Sept. 15, but the basic framework of projected revenues and expenses is in place, and the board spent only a few minutes sorting out whether they were supposed to accept the budget or merely “receive” it under the new rules established by Act 193.

Meanwhile, Mayor Ray Nagin’s seven-month-old offer to help with the district’s business remains on the table. Last week, the mayor’s office sent over a copy of the draft cooperative endeavor agreement that Nagin formally tendered to Board President Cheryl Mills in May. The agreement proposes that the city will offer professional services “to identify and implement efficiencies and improvements to … administrative and fiscal operations.” Some of the areas in which the city says the school district has “an immediate and critical need for professional expertise and services” include revenue estimation, payroll and benefits, and contract and purchasing consolidations.

Under the proposal, a task force of city employees and city contractors would review, analyze and assess the district’s data, systems, procedures and staffing in the areas of technology and finance. The team would make recommendations to the superintendent, help with implementation, and eventually write themselves out of the relationship by training district staffers in the improved procedures.

But a lot has happened since May. Act 193, which passed in June, seems to take the mayor’s offer out of the board president’s court and place it in front of the superintendent. The district has also gained some consulting power from other sources. At the request of the state Legislative Audit Advisory Committee and the district itself, the Louisiana Legislative Auditor’s office has sent several staff members to sift through the tangle of databases, accounts and procedures that came to light in the system’s own audit, published in June 2003.

Three weeks ago, a team of consultants from the CPA firm Deloitte & Touche joined the effort, working on a partly pro bono basis to address key issues and develop strategies. According to the superintendent’s office, administrators and Mills are already meeting weekly with the various “helpers” who’ve already come on board.

Mills says the mayor’s offer is welcome, but adds that another layer of relationships right now might only confuse matters. Speaking through a spokesperson, Amato said last week that the mayor’s deal certainly was not off the table, but stressed that his office was evaluating all options carefully. Nagin projects that his arrangement would make $50 million available to the district for school upgrades and technology, but Mills isn’t so sure. “If he’s talking about refinancing bonds, we can do that ourselves,” says Mills.

Board member Una Anderson says the offer from the city merits a close look. “I think that we still need all the help we can get,” says Anderson, who adds that the district should look at other ways of collaborating with the city, including partnering with neighborhood schools to provide city services after hours.

Meanwhile, in a less cooperative arena, the lawsuit brought by Anderson and fellow board member Jimmy Fahrenholtz to restrain the school board from firing Amato without cause was back in court last week. After hearing arguments, federal Judge G. Thomas Porteous Jr. took the matter under advisement. He said he will try to render a decision sometime next week.