Inside Report for Oct. 28, 2008

• By JEREMY HARPER
• Advocate staff writer
• Published: Oct 28, 2008 - Page: 7B - UPDATED: 12:05 a.m.

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Despite an eventful first year that included a failed $98 million tax plan, a budget crunch and its first-ever election, the Central Community School Board still looks a lot like it did when it started.

Six members of the original seven-member board appointed by Gov. Kathleen Blanco in 2007 were elected to the board Oct. 4.

Marty Guilbeau Jr. was elected without opposition. Sharon Browning, Willard Easley, Ruby Foil and Jim Gardner all handily defeated challengers.

Former board President Russell Starns narrowly defeated Morris Anderson in the close  District 1 race that featured two incumbents and was decided by a mere 14 votes.

The only new member of the board is David Walker, who won the District 3 seat against another challenger, Darren Pizzolato.

All those familiar faces have some serious challenges ahead. Central, which broke away from the East Baton Rouge school system last year, is trying to absorb an expected 2,000 new students over the next four years.

The school system simply doesn’t have enough classrooms for those new students, and it doesn’t have enough money to build any new schools.

The short-term strategy has been to lease a fifth school and add temporary buildings to the other four. The long-term solution, school officials agree, is some sort of new tax to fund at least one new school.

Voters already have rejected a proposal for higher sales taxes and property taxes that would have funded a new $98 million complex to replace its four aging schools.

Board members and school system administrators have hinted that they’ll present a smaller tax package next spring, but the details are a long way from being finalized.

That is the biggest obstacle for administrators and the School Board: devising a capital improvements plan that voters will support.

On Oct. 4, Central voters essentially decided that the original board, with the addition of Walker, has another term to figure it out. The board members elected this year will serve through January 2011.

In the near-term, they’ll have to squeak by with temporary buildings and a razor-thin financial cushion.