School Board Committee Recommendation: Suspend Discretionary Advertising

By Dave Freneaux

The Central Community School Board requested its Finance Committee to meet Monday evening to "consider and take appropriate action relative to procedures and policies pertaining to advertising by the Central Community School System."  The committee did meet, but no real discussion of policies and procedures occurred.  Instead, research requested of the School System's attorney seemed to indicate that the School System may have no legal authority to pay for advertising at all, except for required legal notices in the Advocate, the official journal of the School System.
 
Discussion amongst committee members yielded a consensus that many other school systems do advertise, so it was felt there must be some exception to the law which seemed to prohibit such advertising.  As a result, the committee has recommended to the School Board that all discretionary advertising be suspended and that a request be made for the Louisiana Attorney General's office to give an opinion as to what discretionary advertising, if any, a local School Board is allowed to do.  It is presumed that once that determination is made, the School Board will again address the issue of setting policies regarding discretionary advertising.