Lafayette Parish School Board staff outline budget timeline and $0 concern areas as they prepare May 7 review

Lafayette Parish School Board finance staff presented a condensed budget timeline and a high-level overview of fiscal 2026 budget pressures and balancing steps Wednesday, telling the board they will bring detailed line-item reports at a May 7 meeting and adopt the budget for public review before a final vote on June 12.

The details matter because staff said local revenue shifts, planned construction debt, teacher-pay proposals and health-insurance funding changes together created multimillion-dollar shortfalls that the district is proposing to offset through a mix of reserves, revenue adjustments and staff consolidations.

Matt Duga, a finance staff member, told the board that after discussions with the superintendent the district consolidated a planned May 15 work session into the May 7 meeting and that the May 7 session will begin at 5 p.m. "On May 7 . . . we will present this in detail down to the individual line items, cost centers," Duga said. He said the board will be asked then to adopt the tentative budget so the district can post it online and at the district building for at least 15 days and advertise it in the newspaper as required.

Duga said the starting point was the fiscal 2025 budget rolled forward to fiscal 2026 and that cost centers…