A plan by the Jefferson Parish, Louisiana, school superintendent to eliminate 18 elementary-school librarian positions in an attempt to close a nearly $5-million budget shortfall was rejected by the school board, New Orleans’ WWL-TV reported August 1.
School officials had said the cuts were necessitated by a bill passed by the state legislature in June that increased public employers’ share of health-care premiums, according to the August 1 New Orleans Times-Picayune. The newspaper said the board had previously responded to budget cuts by eliminating librarian jobs in 1991; some but not all of those positions have been restored.
At its August 1 meeting, the board also spared middle-school athletic programs and eight foreign-language positions, but went along with Superintendent Elton Lagasse’s recommendation to increase the student/teacher ratio in classrooms to 28-1 and trim some clerical positions, as well as approving some across-the-board budget cuts.
“Anytime you run into a real funding problem, you look to those things that are not mandated by the state,” Schools Superintendent Elton Lagasse told WDSU-TV. “Librarians fall into that category.”
Posted August 13, 2001.